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Number 10 

JAPAN: IN HISTORY, FOLK-LORE 
AND ART 

By WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS 



JAPAN 

IN HISTORY, FOLK LORE 

AND ART 



BY 



WILLIAM ELLIOT QRIFFIS 

AUTHOR OF "the MIKADO's EMPIRE," "JAPANESE FAIRY WORLD," 
"MATTHEW CALBRAITH PERRY," ETC 



REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

OCl 20 1906 

Cspyright Entry 

cuss CL XXc, No. 

/^^^ ?C 

COPY B. 



>v n 



COPYRIGHT 1892 AND I906 
BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



DEDICATED 

TO 

THE BOYS AND GIRLS 

OF 

CONSTITUTIONAL 

JAPAN 



PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 
1906. 



When, in 1895, Formosa became part of their 
empire, the Japanese found a peak higher than 
Fuji ; so they named it Niitaka, the New High 
Mountain. War with China over, a greater task 
confronted them. Now that their public school 
army has defeated the illiterate Russians, there 
rises a still higher national ideal. Like Niitaka, 
it is within. This new edition tells the story of 
Japan's momentum and achievement to date. 

W. E. G. 

Ithaca, N. Y., May 28, 1906. 



PREFACE. 



In this contribution to the Riverside Library 
for Young People, I have told more about Kioto 
than about Yedo. I have sketched in outline the 
Japan of ages rather than of our own age. While 
political history is the chief theme, my aim has 
been to show how and why the Japanese see and 
think as they do. The adoption of Western 
civilization changes the outer, but does not greatly 
modify the inner man. Believing also that what 
the dignified historians write is only part of a 
people's true history, I have sought, from their 
customs and folk-lore, as well as from the inter- 
pretation of their artists, material with which to 
brighten the narrative. Fact and fiction, however, 
are presented in separate chapters. 

No writer on Japan can fail to acknowledge 
deep obligations to that noble band of English 
students, Messrs. Satow, Aston, and Chamberlain, 
who have made such profound researches into the 



Vlll PREFACE 

ancient Japanese language and literature. To 
them and to Captain Brinkley, the scholarly editor 
of the "Japan Mail," I heartily acknowledge 
much obligation. To my many Japanese friends 
who from time to time assist me, and especially 
to the members of the Historical Society of the 
Imperial University of Tokio, who have honored 
me by membership in their body, I owe much, 
and herewith offer my grateful thanks. 

It is one of the good signs of the times that 
the Japanese are now studying their own history 
according to the methods of science, with truth as 
the end in view. God speed them 1 

W. E. G. 

Boston, Oct. 17, 1892. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGB 

I. Where is Japan? 1 

II. Who are the Japanese? ..... 8 

III. The Morning of Rising-Sun Land . . . 15 

IV. The Japanese Story of Creation ... 26 
V. Origin of the Arts . . . ... .,32 

VI. The Conquest of the East .... 42 
VII. Corea and Buddhism 52 

VIII. How THEY look AT THE WORLD ... 60 

IX. The Mikado and his Samurai . . . .70 

X. Letters, Writing, and Names .... 80 

XL The Noble Families and their Politics . . 92 

XII. Social Life in Kioto . . . . . . 99 

XIII. The Wars of the Genji and Heikb . . .108 

XIV. YoRiTOMO AT Kamakura 117 

XV. The Death of Yoshitsune . . . . . 124 

XVI. The Hojo Rule 129 

XVII. Benten and the Dragons 137 

XVIII. The Ashikaga Shoguns 145 

XIX. Three Famous Men 154 

XX. Ideas and Symbols 166 

XXL Tece Ashes that made Trees bloom . . .175 

XXII. Signs and Omens ' 183 

XXIIL The Dutch Yeast in the Japanese Cake . 192 

XXIV. Interior Forces making New Japan . • 203 

XXV. Outward Agencies . . . . . . • 209 

XXVL New Japan 221 

XXVII. Twentieth Century Japan 229 

Index 245 



JAPAN : IN HISTORY, FOLK-LORE, 
AND ART. 



CHAPTER I. 

WHEEE IS JAPAN? 

Where is Japan, and how does it lie on the 
surface of the globe? 

With the aid of the steamship and railway, we 
may answer by saying that Fuji Yama is about 
sixteen days from New York, or twelve from San 
Francisco. Or, from the other point of view, we 
may say that Japan lies in the Pacific Ocean east 
of China and Corea, in latitude between New- 
foundland and the West Indies ; that is, the Jap- 
anese climate is very much like our own. 

Japan is one of the many archipelagoes in the 
Pacific Ocean. The number of islands under the 
sun-flag is nearly four thousand. To inclose the 
space within the ocean-square thus occupied, we 
must draw our lines on the globe from the point 
at latiti^de 50° 56'. Here our pin, or the sur- 
veyor's stake, is driven in at the most northern 
end of a shima, for that is the Japanese word for 
island, called Araito. This land formerly be- 



2 JAPAN 

longed to Eussia. It is in the old chain or group 
called the Kuriles, or "The Smokers." Japan 
from top to bottom is a line of volcanoes. The 
hot inside of the earth has here a row of vents in 
the shape of great mountains like funnels turned 
upside down. From their holes at the top, as out 
of tall foundry chimneys, gas, fire, smoke and 
ashes escape from the interior of the earth. 

Did you ever see the shell of an avjahi, as the 
Japanese call the haliotis, or sea-ear ? One may 
compare the shape and nature of the country to 
the awabi. The living creature beneath the per- 
forated shell is able through its roof-holes to com- 
municate with the outside world, and make its 
presence and power known to its prey. The line 
of apertures reaches along the top from the apex 
to the bottom level of the shell. So all Japan is 
a great shell or crust of rock and earth, through 
which the steftm, gas, fire, and lava burst forth at 
times, just as the tentacles of the awabi leap and 
twirl through its shell. When, for any reason, 
one or more of these vents are closed, and the 
volcanoes become dormant, great earthquakes 
which twist or wrinkle the skin of the globe, or 
eruptions, which are boiler-explosions on a vast 
scale, are sure to happen. Even the rock crust 
and the granite caps of mountains, unable to im- 
prison the hot subterranean gases, are blown high 
up in the air. 

The little Greek children in old times were 



WHERE IS JAPAN? 3 

told that Jupiter confined the giants under volca- 
noes, and that earthquakes were caused by their 
writhing, but the Japanese children think that a 
great underground catfish makes the mischief in 
their country, and that no one can stop his floun- 
dering but the god Kashima. 

Since the Japanese, in 1875, exchanged their 
half of Saghalin for all the Kuriles, they have 
called them Chishima, or the Thousand Islands. 

Araito, the northernmost tip of the Mikado's 
empire, is a little to the west of Cape Lopatka in 
Kamtschatka. To mark the most eastern point 
of Japan, we must stick a pin on the map at 
longitude east 156° 32'. The Japanese now use 
our system of latitude and longitude for survey- 
ing and navigation. They are thus able to locate 
within a few yards on the great earth's surface 
the position of a moving ship or a thatched cot- 
tage. Looking through the lines of a spider's 
web stretched across the end of a theodolite, they 
can measure the precise distance from plumb-bob 
to stake-centre, and fix the exact spot over the 
centre of a copper bolt driven in the rock. This 
mark of the national frontier is in the island of 
Shimushu at 156° 32'. 

To find the most southerly point of the Mi- 
kado's domain, we follow the meridian down to 
the tiny island of Haterma, whose tip end south is 
at 24° 06'. Close to it the island of Yonakuni 
pokes its rocky nose above the waves. Here, 



4 JAPAN 

also, on the end nearest Formosa, at longitude 
east 122° 45', is Japan's most western extremity. 

So Japan lies between the Russian territory of 
Kamschatka and the biggest of the Chinese 
islands, Formosa. If we inclose the space within 
the four points we have described, we shall have 
a quadrangle of over four million square miles; 
or a little more, in water, of the space occupied 
by the land comprising the United States. In 
this ocean surface, however, the actual territory 
covers only less than 150,000 square miles, that 
is, about one twenty-sixth of the whole. The 
land is to the water as one letter in the alphabet. 
Japan and the two Dakotas are about the same 
in size, say 150,000 square miles. 

Or we may say the Japanese domain looks 
like a ruler laid slantwise on the map between 
Kamtschatka and Formosa. In this long and 
narrow stfip, stretching from northwest to south- 
east between the Russian and Chinese territory, 
the space, roughly measured, is twenty-two hun- 
dred miles long and five hundred miles wide, and 
the land occupied is one seventh of the space. 

On most of our school maps of Asia, the Jap- 
anese Archipelago is represented as, relatively, 
about the size of a caterpillar lying on the pump- 
kin of Asia. Or, if Asia be a ship, Japan is the 
rudder. Indeed, glancing from north to south, 
we may thus make an appropriate picture, in our 
mind's eye, of this land of tea, silkworms and 



WHERE m JAPAN f 5 

silk. We may look upon the rounded coast of 
China as a great teapot, with its spout pointing 
towards the headless butterfly or silk-moth of 
Corea; while the mainland of Japan appears as a 
monstrous silk-worm with its head at Kiushiu, 
spinning out of its mouth a great, glistening 
thread of islands stretching down to Formosa. 
Indeed, while the literal meaning of the name 
Eiu Kiu is " sleeping dragon," the native name is 
Okinawa, or "long rope." 

In the geological ages of the world, there was 
probably an extended causeway of land or moun- 
tain ridge from Kamschatka to Formosa. By 
the action of the ocean waves, continued during 
long ages, this ridge has been broken into large 
and smaU islands. Along the whole eastern 
length of the empire there rushes like a millrace 
a river of indigo blue in the sea. This is the 
Kuro Shiwo, or the black current, which flows 
from the Philippine Islands past Japan and across 
to North America. With the first peopling of 
Japan, and possibly of our continent, this ocean- 
river had, as we shall see, something to do. 

Here, then, is a country stretching between the 
Tropic of Cancer and the latitude of Labrador, 
with most of its people crowded in the parallels 
that include the region between New York and 
Florida. The people are civilized, polished in 
manners, with writing, arts, literature, a long his- 
tory, and a dynasty or line of emperors older than 



6 JAPAN 

any succession of rulers on earth, unless possibly 
that of the popes. They have a written constitu- 
tion, representative government, and the modern 
appliances of war and peace, with steam engines, 
electric telegraphs, printing presses, and many 
other modern things. They now look into a fu- 
ture which they expect to share with Europe and 
America. They no longer turn to China for 
ideas and principles. Having entered the brother- 
hood of the nations of Christendom, the Japanese 
is the most promising of Asiatic peoples. 

In our day and generation Japan has shot into 
notice like the flowering century-plant among the 
nations. Within the memory of young men now 
living, the country seemed as closed, inactive, re- 
pellant, and unpromising as the fat and thorny- 
leaved aloe, that quietly stores up starch within 
and prickles without. Now, having burst into 
splendid bl6om and captivating color, and its in- 
ner riches revealed, Japan charms the world. 

We have answered the question. Where is Ja- 
pan? in the terms of geography and astronomy. 
If now we ask the Japanese poets the same ques- 
tion, they will reply that theirs is the Country 
Between Heaven and Earth, the Land Where 
the Day Begins, Sun-Bise Kingdom, House of 
the Morning, Sun Land, Sun's Nest, Country 
Within the Boundaries, or Kingdom of Peaceful 
Shores. These are the names found in Japanese 
poetry and romance. 



WHERE IS JAPAN? 7 

As for tlie shape of it, they tell us it is the 
Country of the Eight Great Islands, the Dragon- 
fly Kingdom, the Outspread Islands which re- 
mind one of the stepping stones in a garden-path, 
the Castellated Fortress Island, Fertile Plain of 
Sweet Flags, the Beautiful or the Princess Coun- 
try. Politically, Japan is the Mikado's Empire, 
or the Country Kuled by a Dynasty of Heavenly 
Kulers. 



CHAPTER II. 

WHO ARE THE JAPANESE? 

When the imperial census-takers completed 
their count on the 31st of December, 1890, it was 
found that there were 40,072,000 people in Ja- 
pan. We must think of them, the Japanese, as 
a nation numbering over forty millions. 

Three fourths of the inhabitants live on Hondo, 
or the main island. Of the remainder, five mil- 
lions, or over one eighth, dwell on the next largest 
island, called Kiushiu, or The Nine Provinces. In 
Shikoku, the Island of the Four Countries, live 
about three millions. The northern islands, called 
the Hokkaido, or Northern Sea Circuit, are not 
so thickly settled, for in them all together we find 
only a third of a million of souls. 

In the old way of enumeration, they made a 
rough census by counting houses, or smoke-holes 
in the roof, reckoning five people to a house. 
Now, and since 1872, they count noses, and souls. 
There are nearly eight million houses, and they, 
like the people who live in them, are mostly 
thickly massed in central Japan. Here, where 
the soil is fertile, the climate good, and the coun- 
try has been long occupied, we find towns and 



WHO ARE THE JAPANESE? 9 

villages as close to each other as beads on a 
rosary, while the cities are large and numerous. 
In Yezo, however, one may travel many leagues 
through the country without seeing either house 
or man. On every square mile of central Hondo 
there are four hundred and sixteen people, but 
in the islands of the Northern Sea region only 
seven. The average for all Japan is two hundred 
and sixty-six, which makes this eastern empire 
about as well filled with people as Italy, but not 
so thickly populated as China proper. There is, 
however, plenty of room in Japan for more peo- 
ple, since the ratio of inhabitants to the square 
mile is nearly one half that of Belgium or Sax- 
ony. 

Fifty per cent of the population are farmers, 
and live in villages and hamlets. No matter how 
far away the fields which they cultivate are from 
their homes, the countryfolk dwell in houses 
which are grouped together, and a farmhouse 
standing by itself is rarely seen. After the agri- 
cultural classes, in numbers, come the trading 
people, and next the mechanics. 

The people are divided into three grades, — 
nobles, gentry, and commons. The two upper 
classes comprise two millions, while the common 
people number thirty-eight millions. All subjects 
of the Emperor have equal rights before the law ; 
but this has been the case only since 1889, and 
under the new constitution. The Eta people, who 



10 JAPAN 

numbered half a million, and were once looked 
upon as outcasts, and not better than beasts, are 
now citizens. Even the Buddhists did not admit 
the Eta to religious privileges or membership. 
One honorable exception was seen in the Shin 
sect, whose priests and people, to their everlasting 
honor, treated them fairly. 

Up in the north, in Yezo, there are about fif- 
teen thousand aboriginal people called Ainu, who 
have bushy beards and hair and straight eyes, 
like Europeans. 

In the Riu Kiu islands, in the extreme south, 
the people are a little different from most of the 
Japanese, and the language they speak is not so 
correct or polished as that of the people on the 
large islands. All these are subjects of the Mi- 
kado. Excepting the Ainu speech, there are not 
those variations in the language, as spoken in all 
the four thousand islands of the empire, which 
are found in China. Properly speaking, there 
are no dialects. 

The Japanese are quite different from the Co- 
reans and Chinese in stature and appearance. A 
thousand people suddenly gathered at random 
from the streets of Seoul or Peking, and a thou- 
sand gathered in London and New York, would 
probably show averages of stature the same. The 
Japanese, however, are not so tall as people in 
America and Europe. They are undersized ; the 
average height of the men is 5.5 feet, and that of 



WHO ABE THE JAPANESE? 11 

the women 4.5 feet; but among the mountaineers, 
boatmen, and occasionally in the cities, one may 
see a man six feet or over in height ; while the 
wrestlers are gigantic in size and weight. All 
varieties of fat and lean people are noticeable. 
The children are usually plump and rosy-cheeked. 
The boys are active, and the young girls pretty. 

Some one has called the Japanese "the dia- 
mond edition of humanity." 

Unfortunately for the Japanese, he is not pro- 
portionally developed, yet the cause of his short 
stature may be removed. The upper half of his 
body is of proper length, but the lower portion is 
shorter than it ought to be. In perfectly formed 
human beings — and indeed in the average — the 
measurements up and down from the centre of 
the body are the same. Not so with the inhabi- 
tants of Dai Nippon. In the Japanese army, of 
twelve hundred men measured by the surgeons, it 
was found that there was a difference of over an 
inch between the upper and the lower parts of 
the body. 

The doctors say that, besides improper or badly 
cooked food, the chief cause of shortness in the 
lower limbs is the custom of sitting long on the 
knees and heels. Until recently, chairs, sofas, 
stools, and rockers were unknown in Japanese 
houses. People carried their sitting apparatus 
with them, as snails are said to travel with their 
houses on their backs. They made folding chairs 



12 JAPAN 

out of their legs by using their hams and their 
heels, tucking their feet under them. Beginning 
in their childhood, they were able, even when 
grown up, to sit for hours in this position without 
having their legs go to sleep. In this way, and 
in the lapse of ages, the circulation of the blood 
in the lower limbs becoming more or less stag- 
nant, the legs of the whole nation perceptibly 
shortened. 

The Chinese bind the feet of their women in 
order to make them as small as the hoofs of a 
gazelle. The Japanese have never practiced foot- 
binding ; yet without knowing it they have been 
shortening their legs, and subtracting the fraction 
of a cubit from their stature. 

When foreign people go into the houses of the 
Japanese to visit them, they politely try to sit 
down on their knee-bones and ankles. Pretty 
soon they h§,ve to give it up, apologize, and then 
stretch out their legs ungracefully on the matting. 
They invariably fall asleep at the wrong end. 
While their heads are wide awake, their feet will 
not wake up. Nowadays the people put some- 
thing between themselves and the floor. The 
fashion of furnishing the house with chairs, set- 
tees, and high tables is increasingly common. 

In thinking of Japan and the Japanese, one 
must not think of China and the Chinese. The 
two countries and people are too widely different 
in many ways to be compared. China is ten 



WHO ARE THE JAPANESE? 13 

times larger than Japan, and her area greatly 
exceeds that of the United States and Alaska, 
while all the territory of Japan is not very much 
more than half of our one State of Texas. The 
Chinese empire has probably ten times as many 
people as the Japanese. China has an older civi' 
lization and has been more original, Japan being 
for centuries the pupil of the Middle Kingdom. 
The tongues of the two nations have little or no 
connection with each other. In language, cus- 
toms, government, history, character, and temper- 
ament, the two people are quite as different as 
are Russians from Englishmen. 

The Japanese do not smoke opium, do not bind 
the feet of their women, nor wear queues or " pig- 
tails." They seem to be in mind half way be- 
tween European and Asiatic people. Perhaps 
their greatest work and most brilliant career are 
yet before them. The Japanese seem called upon 
to reconcile Eastern and Western civilizations, to 
interpret to Asia the meaning of European ideas 
and institutions. Many wise men think the Pa- 
cific Ocean is yet to become the arena of the 
greatest triumphs of the human race, as the Medi- 
terranean once was, as the Atlantic is now. If 
so, since Japan holds the key of the Pacific, her 
future may be far more brilliant than the past. 
Certainly the promise to the Sun-land is that of a 
new sunrise. 

The Japanese do not lack in reverence for 



14 JAPAN 

their own country. To them it is the Honorable 
Realm, the Land of the Gods, the Country of the 
Holy Spirits, the Kingdom that Endures for Aye, 
the Everlasting Great Japan, created first of all, 
and rising out of the waters of chaos ; they call 
the oldest part of their beautiful land the Island 
of the Congealed Drop. Of this we shall read in 
their own story of creation. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE MOKNING OF KISING-SUN LAND. 

Lying out in the ocean, at tlie ends of the 
earth from Europe, and, in the day of small boats, 
far enough from China, and near only to Corea, 
by whom was the land we call Japan first discov- 
ered? 

Savages who have no letters, and therefore 
make or keep no written history, cannot tell their 
own story, or remember the time when anything 
long ago happened. Even their traditions are 
usually worthless after a few generations. They 
melt away like dream stuff into the infinite azure 
of the past. 

Who were the aborigines, or the people who 
lived before history was written, in Japan ? Who 
came first of all into the lonely islands in which 
no baby had yet cried ? This question even 
scholars cannot now answer. 

Most probably they were men of the Malay 
race who drifted up from the south. From For- 
mosa, or still further below in the Philippines or 
the Malay Archipelago, there is the swift, dark- 
colored river flowing in the ocean called the Kuro 
Shiwo, of which I have already spoken. Even 



16 JAPAN 

without sails or oars, but by simply floating in 
this great Gulf Stream of the Pacific, men could 
reach southern Japan. Perhaps, during as many 
centuries as the present world counts in her age, 
this stream has been gradually peopling Japan as 
well as America. Many things indicate that the 
Japanese have Malay blood in their veins. Many 
of their ancient customs, their tattooing, their 
dances, their comedies and mask entertainments, 
their superstitions and methods of war, their an- 
cient head-hunting raids, point to a Malay origin. 
Certainly the Japanese are a mixed race. 

Another strain of aboriginal blood flows from 
the Ainu, who once inhabited central and north- 
ern Japan. Dark-skinned, more or less hairy 
in their bodies, straight-eyed, bushy-haired, they 
were hunters and fishermen. Though now a mere 
remnant, living in Yezo as mild and peaceable 
savages anfl bear-worshipers, they once bravely 
resisted the Japanese, who by degrees conquered 
and subdued large masses of them within the 
boundaries of the empire. In time they have 
become peaceable tillers of the soil, and good 
subjects of the Mikado. The native histories 
show that as the Japanese waves of conquest 
pushed farther north, just as the white man 
pushes the Indian before him, the free Ainu were 
raiding savages. They plundered the civilized 
farmers and destroyed their houses and crops, 
only to be conquered and reduced to quiet obedi- 



THE MORNING OF EISING-SUN LAND 17 

ence to the laws. In this way, all the Ainu of 
Hondo in time became, by mixture of blood and 
the arts of civilization, true Japanese. 

To this day the Ainu names of the lakes, rivers, 
mountains, and great landmarks, from the Strait 
of Tsugaru down to Kioto, linger beneath the 
later Japanese terms. An American child can 
read all over the United States, and even in the 
place of the original thirteen colonies, the Indian 
names of places long since occupied by our fathers. 
As before Boston was Shawmut, and before the 
Hudson River was Shatemuc, and behind Salem 
was Amoskeag, so under the pronunciation of the 
Chinese characters and Japanese names we find 
the tell-tale Ainu word. Before ever a man with 
a bair-pen, and with "India" ink rubbed up with 
water on a stone, began on mulberry or bamboo 
paper to write the letters spelling Fuji Yama, the 
Ainu had named it the Throne of Fire. 

The Ainu probably came into the Japanese 
islands from the north, where the mainland and 
Saghalin are quite near each other. 

Still further yet, in this England of the East, 
before some Asian William the Conqueror came 
over from the Normandy of Corea, were still 
other folks than Malay and Ainu. Between Co- 
rea and Kiushiu, there are islands which are like 
stepping-stones to help boatmen from sunset to 
sunrise. This is just where the southern points 
of the two countries bend nearest each other. On 



18 JAPAN 

the Sea of Japan, as we go further north, the 
coast lines of the two kingdoms become concave 
and get farther apart, until, near the southern 
point of Siberia, they again approach. The 
current, which on the ocean side sweeps northward 
past Japan, flows on the Asian or Cor can side 
southward. This would make easy passage for 
the Highlanders, or seacoast men of Manchuria, 
who pointed their prows southeastward towards 
the land over which the sun rose and morning 
broke. 

So, by sailing straight toward the rising sun, 
both the southern Corean and the northern Tartar 
would easily reach Japan. Long before they set 
foot on shore, they would see the green mountain 
wall over which the sun rose. No wonder they 
called the new land Nippon, sun-root or sunrise ; 
more fully, Nihon Koku, or Country Over Which 
the Sun Rises. Yet even these are names which 
began to be used only after Chinese characters 
came into use in Japan. Most ancient is the 
pure Japanese, Hi-no-moto, which means The 
Root or Source of the Light, or The Country 
where the Day Begins. No realm has so many 
names as the Mikado's, or names more beautiful ; 
but the oldest of all, variously pronounced, points 
to the lips of a people coming from the west. 

These Coreans and other Asiatic mainlanders 
settled along the coast of Kiushiu and of Hondo, 
at Idzumo, at Wakasa, and in the land bordering 



THE MORNING OF BISING-SUN LAND 19 

these great bights in the coast, near Oki Island 
and at Tsuruga Bay. Here is the heart of the 
country, and the key of Japan. The centre and 
narrowest part of the main island is along the 
coast of Wakasa. It is a place in Japanese his- 
tory like the " Saxon Shore " in Great Britain. 
As on the sand of the English strand so often 
gritted the keels of the Angles and Saxons, so 
here the Asiatic men from the west beached their 
boats. 

Then began the delights of hunting and war in 
their new home, until they were well scattered 
throughout the area of the islands. Probably in 
their numbers, influence, methods, and results of 
conquest, they were much like the Saxons. While 
many of the aborigines of Malay and Ainu blood 
were slaughtered, the majority were spared, and 
large intermixture by marriage took place. Lan- 
guage and customs were modified, and became 
more uniform. Probably until near the time of 
the Christian era, the people were almost entirely 
hunters and fishermen, and tribal wars rather than 
peace were the rule. This was the stone age of 
Japan ; and its relics in the form of arrow heads, 
and rude tools and patterns, and shell heaps, can 
be found as often and as easily as in America. 

Now, among these piratical or colonizing expe- 
ditions, which at various times came from the 
Asian mainland, was one of special interest to us. 
For this we must look much further to the south. 



20 JAPAN 

Across the bay from the province of Satsuma, in 
which the pretty crackled and decorated pottery 
is made, is the province of Ozumi. Here, prob- 
ably, one set of invaders landed and grew to be a 
powerful tribe. After several generations and 
many victories, these brave people began to ex- 
pand their domain. Starting out to conquer all 
Kiushiu they succeeded, and then, reaching the 
region of Osaka by boat, they established them- 
selves in the centre of Hondo. The province now 
called Yamato became their seat of government. 
They rapidly reduced the surrounding tribes to 
submission, and, before many generations had 
passed, the centre and southwest of the archi- 
pelago was under their nominal control. 

The men of this clan or house of Yamato 
were not only very brave and capable, but they 
were better disciplined, and had superior war 
material'and resources. It is probable, also, that 
their weapons were of iron, while those of their 
enemies were of copper, bone, and shell. The 
Yamato men cultivated the soil, and could thus 
lay up large food supplies, while the men they 
conquered depended wholly upon hunting and 
fishing. 

We now know another secret of the success of 
the Yamato men. It lay in the superiority of 
their religion, or possibly their craft in the poli- 
tical use they made of it. It is not likely that 
they possessed writing, but they had a liturgy 



THE MORNING OF BISING-SUN LAND 21 

or ritual. They worshiped their ancestors, and 
made gods of their most famous or useful men 
when deceased. The man who made farming 
more successful, the earth more fertile, or who 
introduced a new article of food ; or the one who 
skilfully healed diseases or averted a pestilence ; 
who invented pottery, or a more effective tool 
or weapon, or a new utensil or decoration, — was 
honored during life, and after death was wor- 
shiped. To their chief they paid something like 
divine honors even when living. His house was 
a temple, or sacred dwelling place, which they 
called a Miya, and its occupant Mikado, or Aw- 
ful Habitation. Possibly, however, the word " Mi- 
kado " means Honorable Gate, for in Japan the 
gate is often nearly as magnificent as the house. 
In this, these primitive Japanese were like their 
Tartar relatives, the Turks, who call their gov- 
ernment, after the palace entrance, the Sublime 
Porte. So, also, the Egyptians spoke of their 
ruler as Pharaoh, which probably conveys the 
same idea. We all know that the Iroquois In- 
dians were Men of the Long House. 

These Yamato men employed religion as a help 
to complete conquest. They captured, as we may 
say, the beliefs of the islanders, whom they con- 
quered, by coupling on to the aboriginal cult 
their own theory as to the Origin of themselves, 
their ancestors, their chiefs, and the Mikado. 
Like a locomotive that draws after it a long train 



22 JAPAN 

of freight cars, so the Kami or Mikado religion 
drew to and after it all else in the country. 

Thus, making an engine of their doctrine for 
crushing their enemies and riveting their chains, 
they taught that they were descended from the 
heavenly gods, and that their ancestors had ori- 
ginally come down from heaven. Their Mikado 
being a son and representative of the celestial 
deities, all men must obey this Son of Heaven, 
or suffer death. The subdued people were taught 
that their ancestors were only earth-born kami or 
gods. The earthly gods must obey the heavenly, 
and their children be loyal to the Mikado. Both 
by their fierce soldiers and by their teachers and 
priests, by better weapons and fighting and supe- 
rior dogmas, the Yamato tribe became the chief 
of all Japan. To this day, the people call their 
emperor Tenshi, or Tenno, which means Heavenly 
Son or King. 

The Mikado and millions of Japanese still 
worship their ancestors, and believe the ancient 
mythology. In the proclamation granting the 
constitution and houses of Parliament, June 11, 
1889, the Mikado, after first, in the sacred shrine 
in the palace, worshiping the spirits of his Ya- 
mato ancestors, said : — 

" We, the successor to the prosperous throne of 
our predecessors, do humbly and solemnly swear 
to the Imperial Founder of our House, and to 
our other Imperial ancestors, that, in pursuance 



THE MORNING OF BISING-SUN LAND 23 

of a great policy coextensive with the heavens 
and with the earth, we shall maintain and secure 
from decline the ancient form of government. 

" We now reverently make our prayer to them 
and to our Illustrious Father, and implore the 
help of their sacred spirits, and make to them 
solemn oath never, at this time or in the future, 
to fail to be an example to our subjects in the 
observance of the law hereby established. 

" May the Heavenly Spirits witness this our 
solemn oath ! " 

Even the political party in opposition to the 
government, called the Kai-shin-to, in the spring 
of 1892, while urging more liberal measures 
looking towards democracy, thus made profession 
of the religion of loyalty to the emperor : — 

"We firmly believe that these deeds [the re- 
forms since 1868, and introduction of many fea- 
tures of Western civilization, most of them the 
direct outgrowth of Christianity] were accom- 
plished by the spirits of the departed emperors, 
and by virtue of the reigning sovereign." 

The seat of power of a country is called the 
capital, but in Japan the miako or kio ; a word 
we see in Kioto the old, and Tokio the present 
capital. In the early days, however, when super- 
stitious fears made people dislike to live in a 
house in which a person had died, the Court, or 
Mikado's residence, was often changed. It was 
easy to put up new houses when these consisted 



24 JAPAN 

of wood, without nails or paint, thatclied with 
straw, and tied together with creeper-vines. So 
each new Mikado made for himself a new capital. 
The region called the Gokinai, or five home prov- 
inces, is the old homestead of the Japanese nation. 
This region is full of places once called capitals. 
Now the sites are only hamlets. In some cases, 
like those of the great Iroquois Indian towns of 
the Mohawk valley, they are only names. Japan 
has had in all nearly sixty capitals. 

Nara was the first to keep unchanged during 
the reigns of no fewer than eight imperial rulers. 
Possibly the fact that four of these were women 
had something to do with such permanence, which 
was then a novelty. More probably, the civiliza- 
tion then being imported from Corea and China 
influenced the new policy making settled life 
seem more civilized and respectable. After Nara 
had served as the capital from A. D. 709 to 784, 
ten years of wandering followed, and then Kioto 
was chosen. From 794 until 1868, the Mikados 
resided in this city ; then Yedo was chosen the kio, 
and named Tokio or Eastern Capital. Only in 
our day have the wonderful art treasuries of Nara 
been opened, and their contents been studied. 

One hundred and twenty-three Mikados have 
sat on the throne of Japan, but those who reigned 
before the days of almanacs, clocks, and written 
records, were not like the ordinary kings or people 
of history. These prehistoric Sons of Heaven 



THE MORNING OF RISING-SUN LAND 25 

were seventeen in number. They usually lived 
to extraordinary ages. All except four died at 
ages varying from one hundred to one hundred 
and forty-three years. As some of those most 
early in the line were born of dragons or sea- 
monsters, and behaved just as people do in fairy 
tales, it is probable that their ages, their reigns, 
and their personalities are uncertain. We can 
be pretty sure that the idea of giving to each 
reign of the seventeen Mikados an exact date 
and length occurred to the imperial scribes and 
almanac-makers about a thousand years after the 
first Mikado is said to have ascended the throne. 
The date of the beginning of the eTapanese em- 
pire, that is, 660 B. c, was not officially fixed 
until 1872, when the Chinese system of counting 
time was discarded for that in use in Europe. 
The thousand years or so before the eighteenth 
Mikado have little value as history. 

Thus far we have looked at the story of the 
peopling of Japan and the rise of the Mikados 
as a cold-blooded foreigner may. We have told 
it in prose, but not so do the Japanese look at 
it. To them it is all poetry, lovelier than a fairy 
tale ; while, until recently, to most of the common 
people, it was their religion. Let us now hear 
the pretty tale as the oldest books, written over 
a thousand years ago, tell it, and as it appears 
in poem, picture, bronze, ivory carving, and the 
whole wonderful art of Japan. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE JAPANESE STOEY OF CREATION. 

In the beginning, heaven and earth were not 
yet separated. Chaos, enveloping all things like 
an egg, contained a germ. The clear, airy sub- 
stance expanded and became heaven, the heavy 
and thick part coagulated and became the earth. 
Then the young land floated in the water like oil, 
and drifted about like a jelly-fish. Out of this 
warm earth sprouted a bush-like object, from 
which were born two deities, Pleasant-Reed-Shoot- 
Prince-Elder-God, and The Deity-Standing-Eter- 
nally-in-Heaven. After these heavenly deities 
seven generations of gods were born. Their 
names are The Deity-Standing-Eternally-on-Earth, 
Luxuriant-Thick-Mud-Master, Mud-Earth-Lord, 
Mud-Earth-Lady, and others with very long 
names, usually ending in the word rnikoto, which 
we translate " augustness." 

These kami or gods, though in pairs called a 
generation, were each single and had no sex ; but 
the last two of the series were Izanagi and 
Izanami, and their names mean The-Male-Who- 
Invites, and The-Female-Who-Invites. 

After these seven divine generations had come 



JAPANESE STORY OF CREATION 27 

into existence, all the heavenly gods, granting to 
Izanagi and Izanami a heavenly jeweled spear, 
commanded the pair to make, consolidate, and 
give life to the drifting land. The two gods 
stood on the Floating Bridge of Heaven, and 
Izanagi pushed down the jeweled spear and 
stirred the soft warm mud and salt water. When 
the spear was drawn up, the drops that fell from 
it thickened and formed the Island of the Con- 
gealed Drop. In common geography, this island 
is Awaji, at the entrance of the Inland Sea. 
Upon this the two gods descended, and, planting 
the jeweled spear in the ground, they made it the 
central pillar of a palace. They then separated 
to walk round the island ; when they met, Iza- 
nami, the female god, cried out, — 

" How lovely to meet a handsome male ! " 

Izanagi was offended that the female had spoken 
first, and demanded that the tour round the island 
be repeated. Meeting the second time, Izanagi, 
the male god, spoke first and cried out, — 

" How joyful to meet a lovely female ! " 

Thus began the art of love. 

Then followed the creation of the various islands 
of Japan, and all the gods who live on the earth 
and are called the earthly deities. These earthly 
gods married among each other, and from them 
were born many good things, such as rice, wheat, 
millet, beans, sorghum, and other articles of food. 
Gradually the earth was filled with trees and 



28 JAPAN 

plants and beautiful objects, as gems and shells 
and waves. 

Down below the earth was the Land of Roots, 
or Home of Darkness. Izanami, when offended 
at her husband, fled into this place, and died in 
giving birth to the god of fire. Izanagi had to 
go after her to win her back. He found it a 
region of awful foulness, and his wife a mass of 
worms. Rushing out, he washed himself in the 
sea, and from the rinsings were born a great 
many evil gods. These trouble the good gods, 
and vex and annoy mankind. But out of his left 
eye was born a beautiful maiden whose body 
shone brilliantly. 

At this time the heaven and earth were close 
together, united by a pillar. Going up this pillar 
into heaven, Izanagi's beautiful daughter became 
the sun, or the Heaven - illuminating Goddess. 
Izanagi's son became the moon, and was com- 
manded to rule the blue plain of the sea and 
multitudinous salt waters. The names of these 
two are Amaterasii and Susanoo. 

As the earthly gods and evil deities multiplied, 
and confusion reigned on the earth, the Sun 
Goddess, or Heaven-illuminator, resolved to send 
her grandson Ninigi down to the earth to rule 
over it. She gave him three precious treasures, — 
a mirror, the emblem of her own soul ; a sword of 
divine temper, which her brother had taken from 
the tail of an eight-headed dragon which he had 
slain ; and a ball of crystal without a flaw. 



JAPANESE STORY OF CREATION 29 

Great was the day when a mighty company 
of gods escorting Ninigi marched down out of 
heaven, and, on the Floating Bridge of Heaven by 
which the two heavenly gods had first descended, 
came down to the earth. Reaching the top of 
the great mountain Kirishima, which lies between 
Satsuma and Hiuga, they descended into the wild 
regions of Japan. 

Ninigi began at once to reduce the earthly 
gods in order, and maintain good government. 
Heaven and earth now grew wider and wider 
apart, and at last separated, so that communica- 
tion was no longer possible. 

The sons of Ninigi were named Princes Fire 
Fade and Fire Glow. While fishing, they had 
a quarrel, and Prince Fire Fade went down be- 
neath the sparkling ocean waves to Riu Gu, the 
palace of the Dragon King of the World under 
the Sea ; there he married the King's daughter, 
the Jewel Princess. After a time spent in the 
under-sea world, the Dragon King, or Ocean- 
possessor, sent Prince Fire Fade back to earth on 
the back of a crocodile, armed with the jewels of 
the ebbing and flowing tides. With these he was 
able to cause or to quell a flood of waters. He 
raised one that threatened to drown the whole 
world, and then his brother Prince Fire Glow be- 
haved himself. Prince Fire Glow begged pardon 
and became the servant of his brother who pos* 
sessed the wonderful tide jewels. 



30 JAPAN 

Prince Fire Fade now built a hut on the sea- 
shore, and roofed it with cormorant wings. Here 
was born the child that became Jimmu Tenno, 
the great-grandson of the Sun Goddess, and the 
first Mikado of Japan. Prince Fire Fade, filled 
with curiosity, ventured to peep into the hut 
roofed with cormorant wings. There he saw only 
a crocodile eight fathoms long, which crawled into 
the sea, and plunged down to the Dragon King's 
palace far below. 

The child thus born of a sea monster grew up 
to be a great warrior, and after many years' 
conquest made himself master of the island now 
called Kiushiu. One day, on coming to the edge 
of the sea, he saw a tiny little earth-god riding 
towards him in the shell of a tortoise, raising his 
wings as he came. Knowing the sea-path, he be- 
came Jimmu' s guide to Naniwa, near the place 
now called Osaka. On landing with his army 
and fighting the enemy, the brother of Jimmu 
was mortally wounded in the hand by an arrow. 

Ascribing this calamity to the fact that they 
had marched against or in the face of the sun, 
they turned and made tteir way round the south 
ern side, with their back to the sun. Meanwhile 
the heavenly gods came to Jimmu's aid, and 
dropped a sword of divine temper through the 
roof of a storehouse owned by a native of the 
region. He brought and presented it to Jimmu. 
Before this sword the enemy fell down. The 



JAPANESE STOEY OF CREATION 31 

heavenly gods also sent a crow eight feet long to 
guide the army. Many earthly gods, ancestors 
of tribes, now submitteci themselves to Jimmu. 
At a great cave eighty earth-spiders were hiding, 
which he attacked and killed. So, having thus 
subdued the savage deities, and extirpated the 
rebellious people, Jimmu built a palace at Kashi- 
wabara, the oak moor in Yamato. There he 
married the princess Ahira. Jimmu died when 
one hundred and thirty-seven years old. 

Thus began the dynasty of the emperors of 
Everlasting Great Japan, ''unbroken from ages 
eternal." 



CHAPTER V. 

ORIGIN OF THE ARTS. 

There is no greater favorite with artists^ 
dancers, musicians, and tlie people generally than 
the story of the laughing goddess Uzume. She 
it was who by her funny tricks enticed the Sun 
Goddess out of the cave. While in her hiding- 
place, all faces were black with gloom, and every- 
thing was plunged in darkness. When Uzume 
drew her out, everybody and all the world was 
omo-shiroi, " white-faced." 

Susanoo, the ruler of the moon, is also called, 
in the sacred books, His-Swift-Impetuous-Male- 
Augustneas. He was a very mischievous fellow. 
His sister was the lovely Sun Goddess. She is 
also called the Heaven-Shining-Great- August- 
Deity. Wishing to beautify the land, she had 
made rice-fields, caused irrigation ditches to be 
dug, and a palace to be built. Her naughty 
brother Susanoo broke down the earth walls 
between the rice-fields, filled up the ditches, and 
threw mud in the palace where the Sun Goddess 
ate her food. His sweet-tempered sister excused 
and apologized for him, but he kept on playing 
his vicious pranks. One day he caught a spotted 



OEIGIN OF THE AETS 33 

liorse and skinned it alive. He then climbed up 
the roof of the house in which the Sun Goddess 
and her maidens were weaving garments for the 
gods. Breaking a hole through the thatch, he let 
the reeking carcase of the animal fall down over 
the looms among the weaving-wOmen, who were 
dreadfully frightened and injured. The Sun 
Goddess hurt herself with the shuttle, and was 
so terrified at the sight that she ran into a cave 
and hid herself. She fastened the rocky door so 
tightly that all heaven and earth at once became 
dark as night. At this, the wicked gods began 
to behave very uncivilly, and buzz like flies in 
the month of June. Besides this, there were ten 
thousand dreadful signs of coming woe. 

Then the eight hundred thousands of gods 
assembled together in the dry bed of the River of 
Heaven. There they took counsel, and summoned 
the god named Thought-includer to help them. 
This wise god, who included in his single mind 
the cogitations and contrivances of many heads, 
they ordered to think out a plan to entice the Sun 
Goddess from her cave. Thereupon he brought 
together those long-singing birds of perpetual 
night which we call cocks, and bade them sing, 
that is, to crow. Taking hard stones to make 
a forge, harder rock for an anvil, and iron out 
of the heavenly metal-mountains, he called the 
heavenly blacksmiths and set them to work. He 
ordered a mirror to be made. One god was 



34 JAPAN 

charged with the making of a string of five 
hundred curved jewels, eight feet long. Two 
other gods of long name were ordered to pull out 
the shoulder blade of a stag from Mount Kagu. 
Heating the bone in a fire of cherry bark, they 
were to watch the cracks, and to draw omens. 
A sakaJci-tvee with branches was pulled up by 
the roots to serve as a wand for the laughing 
goddess Uzume. On the upper branches were 
festooned the curved jewels. On the middle 
branches was hung the great star-shaped or eight- 
pointed mirror. On the lower branches were 
suspended the white and blue peace offerings of 
cloth and hemp. His Augustness-Grand-Jewel 
held these, while His Augustness-Heavenly-Beck- 
oning-Ancestor-Lprd offered prayers and recited 
the ritual. The Heavenly-Hand-Strength-Male- 
Deity stood hiding near the rock door, ready to 
pull it opfin whenever the Sun Goddess should 
peep out. 

Uzume, the laughing goddess, who is also called 
Her Augustness-Flaming-Female, made a sash of 
club moss to hang round her. Her head-dress 
was a heavenly spindle-tree. 

Binding the leaves of the bamboo grass into 
a bouquet, and thus arrayed, she stood on an 
inverted tub or trough. This, as she danced, 
resounded like a sounding-board. Loosening her 
clothes, and acting in the funniest way, as if 
possessed, even the gods could not keej) their 



OBIGIN OF THE ARTS 35 

faces straight. They all burst out into roars of 
laughter, and the high plain of Heaven shook. 

All this so amazed the Sun Goddess in the 
cave that she could not restrain her curiosity. 
Opening slightly the rocky door of the cave, 
she peeped out to see what was going on, and 
to ask what all the gods were laughing* at. Then 
Uzume cried out : " We rejoice and are merry 
because there is a deity more illustrious than 
thine augustness." While she was saying this, 
two of the gods pushed forward the great mirror. 
When the lovely daughter of Heaven saw herself 
for the first time, astonished at beholding so 
beautiful a face and form in it, she gradually 
came further out of the cave. Then the Heavenly- 
Hand-Strength-Male-Deity, who was hiding in the 
shadow, took hold of her hand, and the Grand- 
Jewel God drew a rice-straw rope along behind 
her back. At once all the heavens and earth 
were full of light once more and gladness reigned. 
Susanoo, the brother, was punished by being 
driven into exile. 

Now all this pretty story shows that the gods 
who are described in the Kojiki were genuine 
Japanese and lived in Japan. The River of 
Heaven is exactly like those rivers in Japan 
which have a dry, pebbly bed, splendidly suited 
for picnics and dances, except during times of 
flood. Susanoo is the small boy who teases his 
pretty sister to-day, as he teased her a thousand 



36 JAPAN 

years ago. Amaterasu, or the Sun Goddess, is 
one of those lovely, modest Japanese girls who 
are so charming, industrious, and beautiful at 
the age of sweet fifteen. Even the gods of the 
Kojiki are exactly like the folks we know who 
live under the bamboo and camphor trees. Many 
an Uzume still giggles, simpers, and dances, 
and many a strong-handed fellow still tries his 
strength ; while all the cunning craftsmen in the 
various trades love to see, in the founder of their 
particular business, one of the gods who enticed 
the Sun Goddess out of the cave. 

It may be, also, that this pretty story of the mis- 
deeds of the Moon God and of the Sun Goddess 
points to astronomy. One Japanese author says 
it is only a poetical way of describing an eclipse 
of the sun. The wicked gods who buzzed like 
flies are the rebellious aborigines not yet so fully 
subdued. * They always liked to make trouble 
with the Mikado's officers. The crowd of deities 
who assembled in a great host are the conquerors 
of the country, the gods with specially honorable 
names being the chiefs and leaders. The clever 
men and inventors called on to show their skill 
were the first mechanics, inventors, and engineers. 
Uzume, who showed her powers of amusement, is 
the patron of comedy. 

When the story is told in all its particulars, we 
see that it explains many things in a poetical 
way. It shows why the sun is feminine and is 



ORIGIN OF THE ABTS 3T 

spoken of as a lady, while the moon, instead of 
" that orbed maiden, with white fire laden," is a 
rascally male fellow. It pictures the first inven- 
tion of weaving and clothes, iron-working with 
bellows made of the skin of a deer, and anvil of 
bare rock. Two gods, the first carpenters, dug 
holes in the ground with spades, erected posts, 
and built a palace. Other gods made a necklace 
of the curved jewels, or magatama, out of car- 
nelian or soapstone. They added hairpins and 
bracelets, with head-dress of gold and silver, and 
thus became the first jewelers. The mirror was a 
great work of art. During Uzume's performances 
on the drum-like box, she blew a bamboo tube 
with holes pierced in it. The other deities kept 
time by clapping together pieces of hard wood, 
thus making music in orchestra. Another deity 
took six archers' bows, and, laying them together, 
strung them with cords made of hanging moss, 
and so the hoto, or Japanese harp or piano, was 
invented. Fifes, drums, cymbals, and harps were 
thus used together, besides the tinkling bells 
which Uzume held in her hand. As Uzume 
danced she sang a stanza, and thus music and 
poetry, and probably numbers or mathematics, 
were born together. The verses which she sang 
may be translated either, — 

" Gods behold the cavern door, 
Majesty appears, — hurrah ! 
Our hearts are quite satisfied, 
Behold my charms ! " 



38 JAPAN 

or,— 

" One, two, three, four, 
Five, six, seven, 
Eight, nine, ten, 

Hundred, thousand, myriad." 

Any one who travels through Japan, in places 
where the old fashions and customs are still kept 
up, will see many souvenirs of the Uzume comedy. 
Pretty girls still peep into the round or star- 
jhaped mirror to see their lovely faces and to 
heighten their charms. 

See the working-maid, short and plump. She 
has little black oblique eyes, puffy red cheeks 
w^ell dimpled, and raven-black hair, with a strand 
Dr two loose at the side, and well parted in the 
middle. See her about to wrestle with broom 
or scrub-brush, or to plunge down and hoist up 
/the well-bucket slopping over with water. First 
she will tie up her long, loose sleeves as Uzum^ 
did, and when she laughs, which is often, it will 
be with a crackle. She is an Uzume all over 
again. 

Wait to see a lovely girl, with refined face and 
willowy figure, arrayed in all the glory of colors 
blended with exquisite taste. Enter her home, 
perhaps, on New Year's Day. I remember one 
vsuch, the daughter of a Cabinet minister, a 
princess in beauty and character, and nearly so 
in rank. All glorious within and lovely without, 
she was withal full of sparkle and color. Who 



OBIGIN OF THE ABTS 39 

blames her for inquiry at the mirror? A feast to 
the eyes, she is the Sun Goddess all over again. 

When one goes out on festival days, and sees 
before the temples, or in matsuri processions, the 
merry-makers with curious head-dress, with shrill 
flute, drum, dancing, and tricks funny and fan- 
tastic that keep the crowd in a roar, he knows 
that they are performing the divine comedy again. 
Or the hagura — " the capers which make the 
gods laugh" — are cut by men with "the lion 
of Corea" over their heads and concealing their 
legs. Corea is the country from which many 
of the gods, perhaps the Sun Goddess herself, 
came, and to which Susanoo, the Moon God, was 
banished. 

Stuck in the shining black tresses of the 
maidens will be seen the tinsel hairpins, of 
wonderful size and glitter, just as the gods first 
fashioned them. The festoons of twisted rice- 
straw, which will be found strung over gateways 
and around offerings in house and temple, tell of 
the ropes thrown behind the Sun Goddess which 
kept her from reentering the cave. The bamboo 
branches tied with white or gay-colored strips 
of paper point to the jewel-hung trees which 
charmed the lady peeping out of the cave. The 
sakaki-tvQQ^ borne at funerals or on gala occa- 
sions, the wands with notched strips of white 
paper, and indeed almost everything in their 
mythology, may be seen in use to-day, or, if no 



40 JAPAN 

longer in fashion, they may be found in the 
museums where they have come to resurrection. 
The curved jewels, the copper bells, the strange- 
shaped swords, and relics of by-gone ages, have 
been found in the tombs, or dug up out of the 
ground from under the mould of a thousand 
years, in the place where old imperial capitals 
once were. 

Early Japanese civilization was not Chinese, 
but distinct and original. The arts began early, 
and poets and myth-makers probably lived at the 
same time with the inventors. They knew how 
to tell of famous events, and of useful or beautiful 
inventions, in attractive language and in poetic 
phrase. There were poets in those early days. 

There are some foreign scholars who think the 
Japanese mind prosaic, and its literature destitute 
of genius, but this is an extreme opinion. In 
Japanese mythology are many wonderful and 
beautiful stories which show deep poetic feeling 
and rich imagination, while they are, withal, of 
real originality. 

It would take a long time and many books to 
recite all the fairy tales, and the lovely or horrible 
stories, in the Kojiki, or Book of Ancient Things, 
and to give the local legends which tell poetically 
the origins of ornamental and useful things and 
of trades and occupations. The carpenters, black- 
smiths, jewelers, potters, dyers, weavers, and other 
workers in the arts have severally their patron 



ORIGIN OF THE ARTS 41 

gods and saints. Thus, through mythology, which 
is but decorated or gilded history, there is a sunny 
side to toil. To the Japanese child, all things 
began in Japan, which is the Holy Country and 
the Land of the Gods. To the foreigner, who 
hangs on his walls a costly Japanese picture 
upside down, or prints an Oriental map, a coin, 
or diagram likewise, things Japanese are only 
puzzles or barbarous curiosities. To read aright 
the meaning of Japanese fairy world is to hold a 
key to an enchanted palace of beauty. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CONQUEST OF THE EAST. 

In tlie eyes of critical students, Japanese Ms= 
tory, so called, is not worth much until after the 
fourth century. All the stories before that time 
are so mixed with the stuff of which fairy tales 
are made, that they cannot be accepted as fact. 
Instead of taking as real what Japanese writers 
of history say about the early ages of the empire, 
we prefer to interpret the ancient writings for 
ourselves. By studying the oldest poetry, relics, 
and legends, we obtain from them a true picture 
of the life and times of the eTapanese before 
Chinese civilization and Buddhism came in to 
change them. Imbedded in many of the old 
legends is, no doubt, much interesting material 
for history. 

Even yet, in Japan, the Mikado is popularly 
believed to be divine or semi-divine. Hence it 
is not yet safe for a native of the Divine Country 
to write about the emperor's ancestors as if they 
were men. To the foreigner, the early ages are 
as the ages of fairyland, where clocks, seasons, 
sunrise and sunsets are unknown. 

To the country folks in Japan, these ages were 



THE CONQUEST OF THE EAST 43 

divine, and the wonderful kami or gods lived in 
them. They were more glorious than the present 
degenerate times, when only common men are the 
emperor's advisers. Even as late as the year 
1892, a learned professor in the Imperial Univer 
sity was punished for studying Japanese history 
with critical care, as Europeans study it, and say- 
ing that the Mikado's ancestors were Coreans. 

When the government says that Jimmu Tenno, 
the first Mikado, " ascended the throne " B. c. 
660, or 2,552 years ago, every Japanese is ex« 
pected to believe it, at least to believe it in the 
Japanese language. If he doubts it, he must 
doubt it in English, or German, or French. To 
doubt, and write one's doubts in Japanese, usually 
means punishment in some way, and in old times 
it meant imprisonment. The common people must 
not find out the truth too suddenly, for the inys- 
tery-play of the divinity of the Mikado is not yet 
over. Even Japanese educated in European uni- 
versities must still talk as if the events which are 
said to have occurred a thousand years before 
time was recorded in Japan were known in de- 
tail. 

The Kojiki, or Record of Ancient Things, 
written in A. D. 712, but not printed until 1642, 
is a sort of Japanese Bible. The Nihongi, or 
Narratives of Japan, was written in A. D. 720. 
It is to the Kojiki what the books of Chronicles 
are to tlie books of the Kings. It tells us quite 



44 JAPAN 

fully about the seven long-lived emperors, five of 
whom died when over a hundred years old, and 
one of whom reigned for a century and a year. 

Many of the stories told of the kami or deities 
are very curious. In one case a prince marries a 
beautiful princess. The maiden's name, Hinaga, 
means fat and long. She changed into a serpent, 
from which the prince fled. Many of the gods 
had tails, and some of them had horns. The scene 
of the narratives is first in Idzumo, then in Ya- 
mato, and then in other provinces. The object 
of the stories and narrations seems to be to ex- 
plain the origin and note the ancestry of the 
tribes. As matter of fact, these ancestors are 
now the gods worshiped at the local shrines all 
over Japan. In nearly every town, village, and 
neighborhood, in addition to the Buddhist divini- 
ties, the people still worship local gods. These 
gods were .once nothing more than the savage 
ancestors of the men who still hoe the mud of the 
rice-fields, and kindle smudge-fires to smoke out 
the mosquitoes. According to the old chronicles, 
it was about the beginning of the Christian era 
that the first rudiments of civilization began to 
appear. 

Two of the emperors, Sujin and Suinin, were 
great civilizers, the former reigning from 97 to 
30 B. c, and the latter from 29 b. c. to 70 a. d. 
By them, much of the land was definitely laid out 
m rice-fields, and taxes were levied. Pestilence 



THE CONQUEST OF THE EAST 45 

was averted by making gifts of spears, shields, 
and cloth to all the gods of the rivers and hills. 
To this day, the Japanese people hang up strips 
of cotton and hemp cloth in the form of handker- 
chiefs at the shrines of the gods and on sacred 
trees. The offerings made, when fresh and bright 
and gayly dyed in colors, are very pretty. They 
hang until bleached and frayed by sun, wind, and 
rain. When blown away, or shredded to rags, 
they make a most disreputable-looking sight. In 
our days, having learned how to make paper from 
rags, and knowing the value of the material, they 
send the old offerings to America, or turn them 
into newspaper or book stock in their own new 
mills. 

After the pestilences had been appeased, a war 
with a rebel chief fought, and other adventures 
undergone, the emperor Suinin sent a man named 
Tajima-mori "to the Eternal Land to fetch the 
fruit of the everlasting fragrant tree." This 
means probably that he went to the warm Riu 
Kiu islands, and "the fruit of the everlasting 
fragrant tree " is what is now called the orange. 
From the name of one of the many species, Tachi- 
bana, came the name of a Japanese noble family 
which is almost as famous in the history of Japan 
as that of Orange is in the history of England. 

One of the figures that belong to the early 
heroic ages is that of Yamato Dake no Mikoto, 
who was a son of the twelfth Mikado. He is 



46 JAPAN 

believed to have conquered all eastern Japan for 
his father's empire* When a young man, being 
very beautiful of face and figure, he borrowed his 
aunt's clothes, and disguised himself as a girl. 
Concealing a sword in his bosom, he secured 
entrance to the tent of a rebel chief whom he was 
fighting in Kiushiu. Once inside the cave where 
a banquet was to be held, instead of a yielding 
girl like Judith in the pavilion of Holofernes, the 
rebel found an athletic youth who overwhelmed 
and kiUed him. This feat the Japanese artists 
love to picture very often. After this exploit he 
was called Yamato Dake no Mikoto, or, His 
Augustness the Bravest of Warriors. 

Of course, when the tribes which the Yamato 
or Mikado's clan were trying to subdue would 
not submit, or when they became hostile, they 
were called " rebels," and the Yamato clan-chief 
or Mikado usually marched in person to chastise 
them. In this case, the Mikado, who must have 
been, according to the Kojiki, one hundred and 
twenty-three years old, sent his son, Yamato Dake 
no Mikoto. 

The handsome Warrior Prince set out with his 
army from central Japan, and first visited Ise, 
where still is the holy shrine of the Sun Goddess. 
Here were kept the imperial regalia, or three 
precious emblems, sword, mirror, and crystal ball, 
which Ninigi had brought down from heaven. 
He left his own sword under a pine-tree, and the 



THE CONQUEST OF THE EAST 47 

priestess, his aunt, gave him one of divine temper. 
In all Japanese history, the sword is almost a 
holy thing as if alive; it is the emblem of the 
soul of the hero or brave warrior who loyally 
serves the Mikado. All famous swords have 
names. Many of them have dates and mottoes, 
or verses of poetry, engraved on them. Those 
forged in the ancient times were long, perfectly 
straight, and double-edged. 

The sword given to the Warrior Prince was 
that taken out of the tail of the eight-headed 
dragon slain by Susanob, who had intoxicated the 
monster with eight tubs of sake, or rice-liquor. It 
was called "Cloud Cluster," because born amid 
the clustering clouds of heaven. The priestess 
also gave her nephew a bag which she told him 
to open in time of trouble. In later times, swords, 
when first given to boys to wear, had a charm- 
case fastened to them. Marching eastward, he 
met the enemy on one of the grassy plains near 
the base of Fuji Yama. When these eastern or 
Ainu savages saw the army, they surrounded it 
and set the brushwood on fire. For a moment it 
seemed as if the Yamato men would be swallowed 
up in the flames. In this emergency he bethought 
himself of the bag which his aunt had given him. 
Opening it, he found materials for striking a fire. 
So, first mowing away the grass and underbrush 
with his sword, he struck a fresh fire and kindled 
such a flame that his enemies were driven away. 



48 JAPAN 

He now changed the name of his sword to " Grass= 
mower." He then easily conquered the enemy 
and subdued the land. 

Crossing the Hakon^ mountains he descended 
into the great plain of Yedo, and took possession 
of the whole region round Yedo Bay. The 
country thus brought under the Mikado's rule 
was called Adzuma, a word which means "my 
wife." When Yamato Dake was crossing a cer- 
tain bay or river, in what is now the province of 
Musashi, the god of the water raised a tempest. 
Seeing this, and with the purpose of saving her 
husband, the princess Tachibana, wife of the 
hero, leaped into the waves to appease the wrath 
of the gods. By drowning herself she saved her 
noble husband. Seven days afterward, her comb 
floated ashore, and her husband placed it in 
a tomb as a precious relic. In recrossing the 
mountains, «n his homeward march and by way 
of a more northerly road, he looked back towards 
the scene of his wife's sacrifice on his behalf. 
He sighed three times, saying, " Adzuma, ha ya," 
or, " Oh, my wife ! " The Japanese use this name, 
in poetry, for all eastern Japan ; and when they 
bought an ironclad ship from the government of 
the United States, they changed its name from 
Stonewall to Adzuma. 

Yamato Dake met with many adventures with 
the gods of the strange countries through which 
he passed, but he overcame them as he went. 



THE CONQUEST OF THE EAST 49 

One of the ka7ni appeared to him as a white deer. 
Another lighted smudge-fires to drive away the 
mosquitoes. Another became a white boar that 
filled all the region with mist and hail. Another 
opposed him in the form of a serpent. He over- 
came or circumvented them all, and finally reached 
home after an absence of three years. Weary 
and exhausted after his long campaign, he com- 
posed some poetry, and while singing part of a 
stanza died. His body turned into a great white 
bird, and flew away towards heaven. 

Yamato Dake is one of the great figures 
that loom up in the legendary history of early 
Japan. Around him many wonderful stories 
cluster. With the artists and novel-writers, myth 
and fairy-tale makers, nurses and grandmothers, 
boys and girls, he is a great favorite. Many of 
the curious customs of the Japanese, such as 
hanging up garlic before gates and doors in time 
of contagious sickness, and the wearing of amulet- 
bags in the children's belts, cannot be easily, or 
at least plainly, understood without remembering 
him and the stories told about him. He is 
believed also to have been the inventor of the 
Japanese uta, or poem, which always consists of 
thirty-one syllables. It is arranged in five lines, 
the metre being 7, 5, 7, 5, 7, or "three 7s and 
two Ss," as the hymn-books would say. To make 
this exact number of thirty-one syllables, dummy 
words which have no sense or meaning, but serve 



50 JAPAN 

only for sound or bulk, are often used. These are 
called head or pillow words. 

Thus in 1854, when Commodore Perry anchored 
his ships in the Bay of Yedo, in the province of 
Musashi, near the place where Yamato Dake's 
wife threw herself in the sea, a Japanese poet 
wrote a stanza of five lines which we translate in 
four, as follows : — 

" On Musashi's bright sea. 
The rising- moon 
In California 
Makes setting gloom." 

In the Japanese original, the five-syllable word, 
forming the whole of one line, is only a bolster or 
pillow word for the stanza to rest its head upon, 
and meaning nothing whatever. In the Japanese 
uta, or poem, only pure Japanese words* are al- 
lowed. In the longer poems, and other forms of 
composition, 'Chinese terms are freely employed. 

It is also thought that Yamato Dake first 
taught the making of fire by flint and steel. 
At the time of Uzume's dancing before the cave 
of the Sun Goddess, the bonfires were lighted by 
a blaze obtained from a fire-drill, such as savage 
men still use in many parts of the world. Ya- 
mato Dake kindled the grass by means of flint 
and steel given him in the bag furnished by his 
aunt. So here is probably the story of a new 
invention which was very wonderful in its time. 

Heretofore "the Empire of Japan," which 



THE CONQUEST OF THE EAST 51 

later historians write about, meant, in reality, 
only Yamato, or Idzumo, or a comparatively 
small region in central Hondo. After Yamato 
Dake's time, the territory of the Mikados was 
much more extensive, being ruled more or less 
successfully by them. The Yamato tribe ex- 
tended their power to about the thirty-seventh 
or thirty-eighth parallel of latitude. This line 
would include the part of Japan now most thickly 
populated. Nevertheless, the eastern tribes often 
broke out into rebellion, and many military expe- 
ditions were necessary to tranquilize the various 
disquieted regions. The successful general was 
called Sei-i Tai Shogun, that is, the Pacifier, 
or Queller, of the Barbarians. The title, first 
granted in A. D. 813, was to one Watamaro. 
This Shogun, from being a general in the army, 
afterwards became the great Tycoon, whom our 
fathers supposed to be an " emperor " ! 



CHAPTER VII. 

COREA AND BUDDHISM. 

The Japanese books have mucli to tell about a 
famous lady who, they say, lived in the third cen- 
tury. The artists often picture her in the robes 
of a princess. She was a wonderfully clever wo- 
man, who was probably much more enterprising 
than her husband. Indeed, the Japanese say she 
conquered Corea. This is the way the event came 
about : — • 

Jingu was the hogo or wife of the fourteenth 
Mikado, named Chiuai. To this day, the Empress 
of Japan is called Kogo sama. In a battle with 
rebels he \»as killed, and she was left a widow. 
It is said that she lived to be one hundred years 
old, and ruled the country from A. D. 201 to 269. 
Her counselor was the Japanese Methuselah, 
Takenouchi, who lived to be several hundred 
years old. When she planned to conquer Corea, 
all the hami helped her, one bringing timber, 
another iron, another cordage for her fleet. 

Assembling her ships and soldiers, Kai Kiu 0, 
or the Dragon King of the World Under the Sea, 
presented her with two flashing balls of crystal. 
These jewels controlled the tides, making ebb or 
flood as desired. 



COBEA AND BUDDHISM 53 

Once fairly out to sea, a great storm came on, 
and then Kai Riu 0, or the Dragon King, sent 
huge fishes to push and pull the vessels forward. 
When the Coreans lined the shore to oppose her 
invasion, she threw in the ebb-tide jewel, which 
caused the sea to recede and leave the ground 
bare. When the Coreans rushed forward to 
attack the Japanese ships, which, as they supposed, 
were stranded, the queen threw in the flood-tide 
jewel, and the Coreans were drowned in the in- 
rushing waters. 

Safely landing her army on the coast, the coun- 
try was easily conquered. The king was reduced 
to submission, and sent eighty tribute vessels 
loaded with gold, silver, pictures, silk, and pre- 
cious things of all sorts, with Corean lords and 
ladies as hostages. Many skilled workmen and 
experts in fine arts were also taken home with 
them by the Japanese. 

On reaching Japan a son was born to the em- 
press, and named Ojin. The baby boy had a mark 
under his arms like a quiver. He became a great 
warrior, and after his death was worshiped as the 
God of War. He is the Japanese Mars. This 
was their first foreign war ; and on account of 
Jingu's conquest, the Japanese, even down to 
1873, claimed that Corea belonged to Japan. 
Unfortunately, however, Corean history, as thus 
far studied, knows nothing of this legendary 
exploit. 



64 JAPAN 

If we examine Japanese fans, vases, or carvings, 
we shall be pretty sure to find either Queen Jingu, 
or Ojin, her baby, the young God of War, or the 
Dragon King and the tide jewels, or Takenouchi, 
the prime minister, who usually holds Ojin in his 
arms. 

What is the nucleus of the story ? 

Though the fact be doubtful, the story entered 
very fully into the art and lore of this warlike 
people. The people of Kiushiu built a temple in 
honor of Queen Jingu's son, and it is said that eight 
white banners fell down from heaven upon it. We 
shall see how, long afterwards, when the Buddhists 
baptized the old native gods with new names, the 
boy baby, Ojin, became the great Hachiman, or 
the Great Buddha of the Eight Banners. Every 
Japanese soldier in the Middle Ages used to 
invoke the aid of Hachiman, and many of them 
yet do so. , They also carry his image as an amulet 
in their caps. The precedent of Jingu's conquest, 
A. D. 203, was one chief cause of the great Japa- 
nese invasion and occupation of Corea in 1592- 
1597. It also brought on a civil war in Japan in 
1874. The question of considering Jingu as one 
of the Mikados, or empresses in the line of the 
one hundred and twenty-two or more, has often 
been the occasion of hot disputes and political 
quarrels. Most native historians now omit her 
name as empress. 

Exactly how much is true in the early traditions 



COEEA AND BUDDHISM 55 

of the Japanese, which were first written down in 
the eighth century, it is difficult to say. It seems 
quite certain that many of the so-called gods and 
goddesses in the Kojiki were nothing more or less 
than Coreans who came over into the Sunrise 
King-dom. Even the Sun Goddess herself was 
probably only a Tartar or Corean lady, or queen 
of a tribe. The same may be said of Susanoo, 
the god-man in the moon, and the Oshiko Mimi 
no Mikoto, whom the Japanese especially cele- 
brate. 

It is possible that in the native mythology we 
find imbedded the fantastic account of what we 
may call the first of four great waves of civilizing 
influences which Japan received from the West, 
in the third, the sixth, the sixteenth, and the nine- 
teenth centuries. Queen Jingu's invasion of 
Corea was but an episode in a long series of in- 
fluences upon Japan from the Continent. From 
the mythical times until the tenth century, there 
came to the Sunrise Kingdom a steady streaui of 
emigrants. Many of these were soldiers, farmers, 
skilled mechanics, physicians, missionaries, artists, 
and teachers of the arts and sciences. They 
brought tools, trades, books, scriptures, idols, cos- 
tumes, medicines, and almanacs. In a word, they 
were men who introduced new principles of civili- 
zation. They so improved the Japanese people 
that they are now gratefully venerated or wor- 
shiped, and called heroes, saints, gods, and demi- 
gods. 



56 JAPAN 

Concerning the third and fourth centuries, there 
is little said in the native histories, except that 
silkworms were introduced, and some improve- 
ments made in rice-culture. Civil wars at home 
and fights in Corea were common. Most critical 
scholars think that it is not until the middle of 
the fifth century that dates in Japanese history 
can be relied upon. 

In the reign of the twenty-sixth Mikado, the first 
Buddhist images were brought to Japan. It was 
not, however, until the year 552 that Buddhism 
was regularly introduced and the Japanese gained 
a new religion. The king of one of the three 
kingdoms in Corea sent over priests, scriptures, 
idols, and everything necessary to furnish a tem- 
ple. The bonzes, or missionaries, preached the 
new doctrines at court, but met with violent oppo- 
sition from the Shintoists, or worshipers of the 
kami. Th6 Mikado, therefore, declined to become 
a Buddhist, but gave the books and images to one 
of his high officers, Soga no Iname, who honored 
Buddha. 

This nobleman at once installed the priests and 
idols in his house, which became the first Buddhist 
temple in Japan. 

Like most religious devotees all over the world, 
the conservative Shintoists ascribed the diseases 
which presently broke out to the wrath of the 
native gods, who had sent the pestilence upon the 
Japanese to punish them for harboring new 



COEEA AND BUDDHISM 57 

deities. The Shintoists burnt down Soga no 
Iname's house, and hurled the image of Buddha 
into the river. In turn, such awful calamities 
visited thfe people that the temple was allowed to 
be rebuilt, for this time the Buddhist powers 
were angry. 

Fresh missionaries came over from Corea, and 
priests and nuns went about preaching and gather- 
ing converts. In the time of the female Mikado, 
Suiko (593-628), the followers of Buddha num- 
bered many thousands, and the empress openly 
declared herself among them. Her adopted heir, 
Shotoku, also zealously assisted her, and at his 
death there were forty-six Buddhist temples, eight 
hundred and sixteen priests, and over five hun- 
dred monks and nuns in the country. The 
Buddhists, greatly venerate the name of Shotoku, 
whose posthumous title means Great Master of 
the Illustrious Teaching of Virtue. 

It is not possible here to explain what the re- 
ligion of Buddhism is. We can only contrast it 
with Shinto. The latter could hardly be called a 
religion, because it had then no writings and no 
priesthood. Its shrines were very simple, without 
images or ornaments, and as bare and barn-like 
as most early Protestant meeting-houses. On the 
contrary. Buddhism is, in outward form, as rich 
and bright, and attractive to the senses, as Roman 
or Greek Catholic churches. Besides images, pic- 
tures, lights, altars, rich vestments, masses, beads, 



58 JAPAN 

wayside shrines, monasteries, monks, nuns, shorn 
priests, bishops, archbishops, pope or lama, saintly 
intercession, indulgences, miracle-working relics, 
exclusive burial-ground, and splendid sacred edi- 
fices for worship. Buddhism has scriptures, rules 
of discipline, doctrines, a calendar of saints, and 
nearly everything visible that is found in the 
Roman system. * 

Like all other religions. Buddhism has been 
propagated by missionaries and teachers with pa- 
tience, earnest prayers, plenty of money, and hard 
work. We have not space to tell the story of the 
planting of the faith, its missionary and its doc- 
trinal development, nor of its great teachers, 
saints, and heroes. It is enough to say that it 
required nearly a thousand years to convert the 
whole Japanese nation. When, in the ninth 
century, the Jearned priest Kobo taught that 
Shinto was "but another form of Buddhism, and 
that even the kami or gods were early manifesta- 
tions of Buddha or his saints, and so baptized all 
the old deities and festivals with new names, the 
triumph of the faith was secured. Henceforth 
Buddhism became the chief religion, though 
Shinto was never wholly forgotten. The old 
doctrines and practices were kept alive by the 
scholars and devoted patriots until the great 
revival and ascendency in our own time. To the 
mass of the people, Shinto was but a system of 
national legends. They knew that a Buddhist 



CORE A AND BUDDHISM 69 

temple was a tera, and a Shinto shrine was a miycf., 
but they could not go much further. 

What Buddhism has been to Japan, and done 
for her people, let Professor Basil Hall Cham- 
berlain tell. We quote from the invaluable little 
book, " Things Japanese : — " 

" All education was for centuries in Buddhist 
hands. Buddhism introduced art, introduced med- 
icine, moulded the folk-lore of the country, created 
its dramatic poetry, deeply influenced politics and 
every sphere of social and intellectual activity. In 
a word. Buddhism was the teacher under whose 
instruction the Japanese nation grew up." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HOW THEY LOOK AT THE WORLD. 

The dreams of a Japanese child, the thoughts 
of his mind, the action of his brain, are different 
from those of children born between Boston and 
San Francisco. His eyes see more, and less, than 
ours when looking out on the world. The stars, 
the trees and flowers, the sea and land, have each 
a different story to tell. From his babyhood, the 
fairy tales, the explanation of things, the answer 
of nurse and parents and grandmother to his 
Why ? and How ? are not wh^t the answers to 
us have been. Hence his dreams and thoughts 
are quite different from those of our boys and 
girls. 

In these days, of course, at the public schools, 
the Japanese boy learns the geography of the 
world and the history of nations, besides getting a 
smattering of various sciences. Then he comes 
home to bother his father and mother with strange 
words and notions. Yet, with the great multitude 
of the people, especially those in the country, the 
old opinions still prevail, and will hold their own 
for centuries to come. For example, earthquakes 
are very frequent and often dangerous in Japan. 



HOW THEY LOOK AT THE WORLD 61 

In October, 1891, about ten thousand people were 
killed or wounded by them. Naturally, one asks 
what causes them. A scientific man, in trying to 
explain them, will talk about the " attraction of 
gravitation," " density," " pressure," etc., etc.; but 
to the Japanese farm-laborer the cause is plain 
enough. It is the jishin-uwo. 

Now the earthquake-fish is a great monster some- 
what like a catfish. It is seven hundred miles 
long, and holds the world on its back. Just as 
the Greek children were told that under the vol- 
cano of Stromboli, in the Mediterranean, was 
buried a giant, and that his writhings caused the 
earthquake, so the Japanese countryfolk think 
that the wrathful wriggling of the great catfish 
makes houses fall and the ground crack. With his 
tail up in the north, and his head in the region of 
Kioto, he can shake all Japan. What hinders 
him from utterly destroying the country ? 

When the world was first created by Izanagi 
and Izanami, there were two gods who were 
charged with subduing the northeastern part of 
Japan. Having quieted all the enemies of the Sun 
Goddess, one of them, Kashima, stuck his sword in 
the earth and ran it through to the other side, leav- 
ing only the hilt above ground. In the course of 
centuries, this mighty sword shrunk and turned to 
stone, and the people gave it the name of Kaname- 
ishi. It is the rivet-rock of the world, binding 
the earth together, as the kaname or rivet binds 



62 JAPAN 

the sticks of a fan. No one can lift this rock ex- 
cept Kashima, who first put it there. Yet even 
he never touches it except when the earthquake- 
fish gets very violent. Then the god holds him 
down with the rivet-rock and he becomes quiet. 

For the causes of other things, these people, 
who lived so long out on an island separate from 
the rest of humanity, and thought " the world " 
meant Japan, were accustomed to look to their 
mythology, just as the old Greek children did to 
theirs. For example, when the Japanese scholars 
learned from the Dutchmen who lived at Naga- 
saki that the earth revolved daily on its axis, 
spinning round like a top in motion, they at once 
remembered that Izanagi had thrust in his spear 
and stirred the earth around. This, then, they 
thought, was the cause of the daily revolution of 
the earth. 

The spot 'where Izanagi came down to earth, 
and stuck his spear in the ground to make it the 
main pillar of a palace, was formerly the North 
Pole ; but since that ancient time the earth has 
wabbled over. The spot marked by Izanagi's 
spear is at Eshima, an island off the eastern coast 
of Japan. This proves, they think, that «Tapan 
lies on the summit of the globe. 

Foreign countries, as well as several thousand 
small islands of Japan, were not made by Izanagi, 
but were formed by the foam and floating mud 
of the seas curdling and becoming solid. 



HOW THEY LOOK AT THE WORLD 63 

In Japanese poetry and romance, there are 
many honorable names for the sun and moon. In 
pictures and poems, much is made of these two 
luminaries, but very little of the stars. The 
poets, lovers, and romantic folk spend many hours 
in gazing at the moon. On moonlight nights, in 
mild weather, thousands of people throng the 
bridges, walk the streets, or lounge in boats on 
the river, enjoying themselves in looking skyward. 
The houses have moon-viewing chambers. The 
novels are full of the same sentimental habit. 
The Genji Monogatari, or story of Genji, is one of 
the most famous in Japan. It is often quoted in 
speech and book, and its scenes and characters 
are illustrated on fans, napkins, and literature 
almost as much as those of Shakespeare are with 
us. It has fifty-four chapters, named after the 
beautiful women beloved of Prince Genji, and 
each woman's napae is that of a flower. It was 
composed in the year 1004, by its authoress, under 
inspiration of the moon reflected in the water 
of Lake Biwa. She wrote two chapters the first 
night, and finished the whole work in a few weeks. 
The moon filled her soul with blossoming thoughts 
and images. 

Yet, as I have intimated, while a large book 
on the lunar enjoyment of Japanese people could 
be easily compiled, the stars are quite neglected 
both by poets and people. Probably this is be- 
cause the planets and stars were made from the 



64 JAPAN 

mud which flew off from the earth when stirred 
lip by Izanagi. Some wise men used to think that 
the stars were made chiefly to guide navigators 
and other foreign people to the land of the Mi- 
kado to bring their tribute to him. In fact, some 
old-time Japanese were as conceited as the Chi- 
nese whom they ridicule. 

Occasionally a girl is named Hoshi, or star, but 
the people have, in the name, hardly any special 
poetical associations. Quartz crystals are sup- 
posed to have dropped from the stars, or from a 
dragon's mouth. The one story connected with 
the stars is of the herdsman and weaving-girl. 
These are the stars in Aquila and the star Vega, 
on opposite sides of the Milky Way. Japanese 
children celebrate with great glee the festival of 
the Weaving Princess and the Ox-King on the 
evening of the seventh day of July. During 
the day thfty tie bright-colored strips of paper, 
written over with poems, to bamboo poles, set these 
up in various places, and hope for good luck. The 
lovers up in the sky can only cross the River of 
Heaven, as the Milky Way is called, on this one 
night. Then, if the weather is fair, and the river 
not overflowed, myriads of magpies fly together 
and make a bridge over the stars for the pair to 
cross and meet. 

Up in the moon grows a katsura, or cassia-tree, 
whose leaves in autumn turn red. This is what 
causes the brilliant color which so delights the 



HOW THEY LOOK AT THE WOBLD 65 

In August and September, both 
young folks and middle-aged will sit up all night 
until well into the morning to see the moon rise 
over the sea, meanwhile drinking rice-wine and 
composing poetry. Every one who has studied 
the pictures on fans and cabinets is familiar with 
the bright red moon of the Japanese artists. 
Usually it is seen rising behind bamboo groves. 

In the three great nights in the lunar year, the 
harvest moon, which the Japanese call the bean 
moon, is most looked at ; then the people make 
offerings of beans and dumplings, and decorate 
their houses with eulalia grass and Japan clover, 
which botanists name Lespedeza, after Lespedez, 
an old Spanish governor of Florida. The next 
following moon, in September or October, is the 
chestnut moon, because celebrated with bouquets, 
chestnuts, and dumplings. 

Until 1872, as in all old nations, the moon 
marked the month, and the lunar calendar was 
the rule. In that year, greatly to the disgust of 
the Chinese, the Japanese left off the old fashion, 
and counted their days, months, and years accord- 
ing to European almanacs. At first the change 
wrought sad havoc with the old customs. The 
anniversaries, which always came on such a day 
of such a moon, had to be adjusted to the new 
state of things. Now, however, all but the priests 
and a few old folks are used to the change, and 
like being in step with the rest of the world. 



66 JAPAN 

In the moon, the poets and novelists not only 
locate a great city, whose exact site is as uncertain 
as that of Norumbega, but also tell of a moon- 
maiden who comes down to the earth. She is very 
lovely, sometimes has wings, and is shining bright 
like crystal. She is sent to the earth as a punish- 
ment for her offenses. In one story, an old bam- 
boo-cutter finds, in a joint of a growing bamboo 
cane, a tiny human child no longer than a lady's 
finger. She glistens with light like a gem, and 
grows to be so amazingly beautiful that all the 
princes fall in love with her. She is called Prin- 
cess Splendor. Like the imperious lady of other 
fairy worlds, she lays impossible tasks upon them. 
One lover is told to go to India and bring back 
the stone bowl of Buddha ; another must get the 
jewel-lance from Horai in the Eternal Land ; a 
third must snatch the jewel from the claws of the 
dragons under the sea ; and so on through a long 
chapter. Even the Mikado falls in love with her ; 
but notwithstanding that he sets two thousand 
expert archers about the bamboo-cutter's hut and 
on the roof, she is carried away in a flying chariot 
to the moon, leaving the old man broken-hearted. 

In another case a moon-maiden, who has taken 
off her wings and suit of feathers to bathe in the 
sea of Suruga's shore, has her celestial clothing 
stolen by a fisherman. Only after much trouble 
does she regain her fairy suit, and then she flieia 
away to the moon. A shrine was afterwards built 



HOW THEY LOOK AT THE WORLD 67 

to mark the spot, and the story is still told to the 
children and danced and acted to their elders. 

The common people, who are more prosaic in 
their notions, and depend more on Chinese and 
Buddhist stories, see, instead of a man in the 
moon, a hare pounding mochi, or rice-dough for 
cakes. In the Hindoo story, the hare pounds 
drugs as a punishment ; but as in eTapan the word 
mochi means both " full moon " and " rice-pastry," 
the Japanese will have it that the pestle of " the 
pearly hare " is beating, in the well-known wooden 
mortar seen in every rice-shop, the material for 
the national cake. In the sun they do not see 
spots, but a three-legged crow. "The golden 
crow and the jeweled hare " are the poetical terms 
for the great lights that rule the day and night. 

In Japan there is a kind of opera, or panto- 
mimic dances, called no. Foreigners soon tire in 
seeing even one performance of these dances, for 
they often last many hours. They consist chiefly 
of music and pantomime, with strange gestures, 
motions and grimaces of men curiously dressed, 
often with grotesque masks, and perhaps with 
trails several yards long. To the foreign spec- 
tator they are wearisome, mainly because he does 
not understand or appreciate them. He sees only 
motions which have no meanino^ to him. The 
Japanese delight in them because they represent 
to him the events and scenes, tragic, dramatic, or 
comic, of his fairy world. 



68 JAPAN 

For example, if a man is making curioug 
motions, as if trying to escape a flood, and dodg- 
ing his head, with his mouth up in the air as if to 
escape drowning, while another holds in his hand 
two shining crystal balls, he knows the dance 
represents the story of Princes Fire Fade and 
Fire Glow. 

If one man be dressed in a dragon-helmet with 
a back-cover of glistening scales, behaving like a 
drunken man, while another is brandishing a 
great sword, he knows it is the story of the Moon 
God who slew the eight-headed dragon after in- 
toxicating him with rice- wine. Similarly, also, the 
archer who slew the dragon-centipede, and de- 
livered the maiden doomed to death ; or the 
moon-fairy tantalized by the fisherman who is 
keeping her suit of feathers ; or the fox-god that 
helped the famous sword-maker Mun^chika to 
forge his blades, — are represented in the no 
dances. The musicians and singers forming the 
chorus tell the story and the dancers act it out. 
The music represents the gentle rain ; the wind 
stirring the pine-trees ; the pheasants calling to 
their young ; the nightingale's notes, or the crash 
of thunder, the lapsing of waves and the roar of 
the sea. 

In a word, the Japanese cultivate their flowers, 
teach their children, write their books, name their 
minerals, animals, shells, and living pets, write 
their stories, paint their pictures, look out upon 



HOW THEY LOOK AT THE WORLD 69 

the universe, and populate the heavens, the air, 
the earth, and the waters, differently from us, be- 
cause their ancients, their scriptures, their country, 
and their insular experiences are unique. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE MIKADO AND HIS SAMURAI. 

From the fifth century the Japanese stand in 
the clear light of history. With writing, and 
methods of reckoning time, it is easy to keep 
records of what actually happened. We find that 
after the seventeenth Mikado, Nintoku, dies, at 
the age of one hundred and ten years, there are 
no more long-lived emperors. Even on the throne, 
and called Sons of Heaven, they die at about the 
same age as common folks. After clocks and 
almanacs come into use, it is found that only 
three emperors in the whole of the long line have 
lived to thef age of fourscore years, and but a few 
to the age of seventy. From the death of Mn- 
toku to Kimmei, in whose reign large companies 
of Corean scholars, teachers, missionaries, and cun- 
ning workmen came over to Japan, the average 
reign of fourteen Mikados was but ten years. 

Buddhism wrought a great change in both the 
court and the nation. Shrines, temples, and pago- 
das were built all over the country, and art and 
trades were greatly stimulated. Painters, carvers, 
and shrine-makers multiplied. Education, though 
not yet national, grew to be more general. Books 



THE MIX ABO AND HIS SAMURAI 71 

became less rare ; manners and customs were im- 
proved. The priests were often real civilizers, 
making roads, sinking wells, maintaining schools, 
and softening manners. One of them introduced 
stick-ink and ink-stones, and the use of millstones 
for grinding. 

The most striking effect of the new faith was 
seen in the court. It wrought radical political 
effects, for in time it came to pass that many of 
the Mikados, who had become zealous Buddhists, 
left the throne and retired to cloisters, while the 
empresses became nuns. Abdicating their author- 
ity, they nominated their sons to the throne. It 
frequently happened that the heir was a mere 
child. This gave the ambitious priests and nobles 
at the court the opportunities they wanted for 
carrying out their own schemes, as we shall see. 

Besides the great change in religion, art, lite- 
rature, and politics wrought by Buddhism, the 
form of government was modified by borrowing 
the system then in vogue in the Chinese empire. 
Japan has always been mightily affected by China, 
and has borrowed much from her great neighbor, 
though usually by way of Corea. The famous 
Tang dynasty of emperors, one of the longest 
and most brilliant in the annals of China, began 
its course in A. D. 618, lasting until the year 905. 
This period included the invention of printing by 
blocks, the founding of the Chinese Imperial 
Library and Academy, and the golden age of 



72 JAPAN 

Chinese literature. The laws were reduced to 
codes, the official orders reformed, and the form 
of government more centralized. Military con- 
quests greatly extended the frontiers of China. 
Commerce with the Arabs was begun, the mari- 
ner's compass put to use in sea voyages, and 
porcelain and far-oriental products became well 
known among them. At the Chinese imperial 
court at Singan, embassies from Kome, Nipal, 
Persia, Thibet, Corea, and Japan had audience of 
the emperor. 

The Japanese have always been great bor- 
rowers, thus showing their intelligence and ap- 
preciation of what is good. Furthermore, they 
usually improve upon what they borrow. As they 
see, in the nineteenth century, the superiority of 
the civilization of Christendom to their own, so, a 
thousand or more years ago, they perceived that 
the Chinese' methods were better than their own. 
Laudably they determined to be second to none, 
and so they began a system of reforms which 
introduced a political, even as Buddhism set in 
motion a religious, revolution. 

In the most ancient times, the method of gov- 
ernment was that of feudalism. That is, all the 
land belonged in theory to the Mikado, by whom 
it was feud or let to lords or tenants on condition 
of service. When the ground was cultivated, 
each farm was divided into nine parts, eight 
being for the local lord who owned or employed 



THE MIKADO AND HIS SAMURAI 73 

the serfs or laborers who tilled the soil, and the 
ninth part being cultivated for the Mikado. The 
tribute rice or other products were brought to the 
imperial treasury laden on horses gayly decked 
with crimson trappings and tinkling bells, and 
the occasion was usually a scene of festivity. 

This old, simple feudalism was in the seventh 
century abolished (just as the vastly more com- 
plex feudalism was swept away in 1871), and a 
new governmental system, in which everything 
centred in the capital, came into vogue. New 
orders of nobility were created. In the nine 
ranks there were, in all, thirty grades. Eight 
boards or departments of government were 
created, forming the Imperial Cabinet. These 
were supervised by four high ministers, who also 
had oversight of the governors who were sent out 
from the hio or capital to rule the provinces, 
collect the taxes, keep order, punish the violent, 
and execute the laws. Each noble or officer had 
a rank which was separate from his office. At 
court, where etiquette was of as much importance 
as religion, all questions were settled according to 
precedence in rank. 

In most old countries the two dominant castes 
are those of the priest and soldier. In Chinese 
Asia, the priest, as such, has not relatively the 
office and rank held in Western Asia and Europe. 
The two great classes are the civil and the mili- 
tary. 



74 JAPAN 

The civil officers served at the capital or in the 
provinces. The military classes formed the army, 
the militia, and the reserve. The soldiers of the 
first class were on garrison duty, the second were 
called out when rebellions had to be put down, 
but only rarely were all the able-bodied men 
under arms. At first the business of soldier and 
farmer was carried on by the same man, the 
spear or the hoe being taken up as occasion re- 
quired. In course of time, however, it was found 
best to separate the men into two distinct classes. 
The strong and hardy, especially if they had 
money and horses and were good archers, became 
professional soldiers. The poorer and weaker 
men were left to till the soil and remain farmers. 
Thus, the farmer and the fighter were made dis- 
tinct from each other, and the military class 
became the first of all among the people. Other 
classes later 'grew up until they numbered four, — 
soldier, farmer, mechanic, trader ; and these were 
subdivided into eight, but the soldier was the 
first of all. 

This division took place a thousand years ago, 
but it was one of the most momentous in the his- 
tory of the empire. The farmer stayed where he 
was, to dig, plant, toil, and pay taxes. At first 
only the guards in Kioto, whose business it was to 
samurau or serve the Mikado and protect the 
palace, were called Samurai ; but gradually the 
name was taken by the whole military class, who 



THE MIKADO AND HIS SAMURAI 75 

from this time forth entered upon a career of de- 
velopment. War, adventure, the cultivation of 
manners, refinement, and afterwards of learning, 
literature, and political skill, have made the Sa- 
murai the typical progressive Japanese. In our 
day there are three classes in Japan, — nobles, 
gentlemen, and common people. The Samurai 
are the gentlemen, now called Shizoku. From 
this class have come nearly all of the famous men 
of Japan since the Middle Ages, while in our day 
most of the Japanese students in America and 
Europe are from this class. These young men 
at home were usually trained in three religions, 
and to understand thoroughly and practice skill- 
fully the two professions of arms and letters. 

Of the three religions, one is native and two 
were imported. Shinto, or the Way of the Gods, 
is the native religion. It consists of the worship 
of nature and of ancestors, with many rules about 
cleanliness and purity, and not a few picnics and 
merry-makings. Confucianism, imported from 
China, teaches obedience and faithfulness to em- 
peror, parents, teachers, and all superiors, and 
makes piety or filial reverence pretty much the 
same as religion. Buddhism inculcates faith and 
charity. It made its disciples kind to the poor 
and to the animals. In a word, " Shintoism fur- 
nishes the object of worship, Confucianism offers 
the rules of life, and Buddhism supplies the way 
of future salvation." The child as he grew up 



76 JAPAN 

had constantly before his eyes the emblems of 
each of the three religions. In nearly every 
Samurai's house were the moral books of Con- 
fucius, the black lacquered wooden tablets in- 
scribed in gold with the Buddhist names of his 
ancestors, while on the god-shelf stood the idols 
and symbols of Shinto. Every child and adult 
had thus many things to worship ; the sun, moon, 
stars, ancestors, heroes, images, emblems, animals, 
waters, and hundreds of other things, visible and 
invisible. 

The favorite god of the school children was one 
called Ten-jin, or Heavenly Man. The ambition 
of every Samurai boy was to be a good penman 
and scholar, and so for hundreds of years the 
Japanese children have prayed to Ten-jin to help 
them to master the difficult Chinese characters. 
How he came to be a god, and to receive worship, 
we shall pijpceed to tell. Most of the millions 
of Shinto gods were made in like manner. The 
temples in his honor are found in all the large 
cities in Japan. 

The Sugawara family was from ancient times 
famous for the great learning of its members. 
The emperor Kwammu (782-805), who took 
great interest in education, and was himself 
superintendent of the University, made Sugawara 
Furuhito his tutor. He also granted salaries and 
revenue to other Sugawara men who by learning 
and literature obtained and held an honored place 



THE MIKADO AND HIS SAMURAI 77 

at court. The school for the practice of penman- 
ship and the study of the Chinese classics and 
histories was founded when Kioto was first made 
the capital. It was gradually enlarged and made 
a university. Here flocked the young men whose 
ambition was to enter the service of the govern- 
ment. Here the Sugawara teachers made a great 
reputation, and in their own houses gathered 
large and famous libraries. Sugawara Michizane 
was the most erudite of all his family. He once 
wrote twenty Japanese stanzas, on twenty different 
subjects, while eating his supper. He began to 
write Chinese verses at the age of eleven. When 
the envoy from China visited Kioto, Michizane 
was appointed to receive and communicate with 
him. 

In a book written A. D. 893, Michizane describes 
his study, in which the books were stored in three 
rows of cases on four sides of his room. His 
students were so well trained by him that they 
usually succeeded in the competitive civil service 
examinations, and were more numerously ap- 
pointed to office than the pupils of other teachers. 
More than one hundred of them were taught in 
his study, so that the scholars usually called this 
bookroom Riu-mon, or Dragon Gate. In Chinese 
folk-lore the carp, by leap and ascent over the 
waterfall, turns into a dragon. So the boy who 
overcomes difficulties in study and passes hard 
examinations wins office, rank, and fame. The 



78 JAPAN 

dragon is the emblem of imperial office. Michi- 
zane's works number twelve volumes of poetry 
and two hundred of history. 

The scholar in his study was happy, but the 
scholar in politics had sorrow and trouble. So 
long as Michizane was only the tutor of the 
emperor Uda (888-897), or was busy in writing 
poetry or literature, the court politicians, thinking 
him only an ordinary " literary fellow," were not 
jealous of him. When, however, the Mikado 
Paigo (898-930) appointed Michizane the junior 
prime minister, then his enemies, the Fujiwara 
nobles, plotted against him. One of them, his col- 
league, accused him to the emperor, and secured 
his removal to Kiushiu under circumstances that 
made it seem banishment. The exiled scholar 
spent his time in literary labor, and made himself 
beloved by all the people. When he died they 
built a temple to his memory and worshiped him. 
The Mikado also repented, and bestowed on Michi- 
zane the posthumous title, Dai-jo-Dai-jin, which 
is the highest known to a subject. In the Shinto 
religion admitted as a god, he was named Ten- 
jin. All classes from the noblest to the humblest 
worship him with divine honors as a typical 
Japanese. The twenty-fifth day in each month, 
in the old calendar, was a holiday in his honor, 
and often on these occasions an imperial mes- 
senger was sent to do obeisance at his tomb. He 
is, in a sense, the Confucius of Japan. 



THE MIKADO AND HIS SAMUBAI 79 

Fine manners have always been a fine art in 
Japan. Long before Micbizane's time the arts 
of politeness were carefully studied at court, and 
among the upper classes. Indeed, it is said that 
as early as the seventh century there were manuals 
or treatises on politeness. These were studied as 
part of the education of the Samurai, and it may 
truly be said that the wonderful polish and refine- 
ment of manners among Japanese are the fruits 
of a thousand years of culture. Religion, ethics, 
education, literature, and experience in arms pro- 
duced that unique specimen of a man, the Japa- 
nese Samurai. In the romance, drama, and art, 
which reflect actual history, the heroes and hero- 
ines are almost invariably of Samurai family. 
Even now, under a written constitution and a 
representative government, it is the four hundred 
thousand adult male Samurai who rule the forty 
millions of people, make the politics, and shape 
the destinies of Tei Koku Nippon, or the Land 
Ruled by a Divinely-descended Dynasty. 



CHAPTER X. 

LETTERS, WRITING, AND NAMES. 

Before the advent of Buddhism, with its whole 
train of civilizing influences, the greatest of the 
importations was that of writing. This brought 
Japan into the light of history. 

The dividing line between barbarism and civi- 
lization is that of letters. A man is no longer 
a savage when he can write, and thus record, save 
up, and accumulate knowledge. Had Japan never 
received letters, she might still be as Formosa, 
and the Japanese as the Butan savages who in- 
habit this beautiful island. 

Uncertain tradition gives the credit of the 
introductioij of books and writing to a son of 
the king of Corea named Atogi, who came on 
an embassy to the Mikado's court in the fifteenth 
year of Ojin, that is, about a. d. 286, remaining 
one year. On his return, by invitation of the 
court, a teacher named Wani came over to Japan. 
Some say he was a Chinese from the kingdom of 
Go. He crossed the sea, and introduced the 
system of pronunciation still called Go-on. Many 
of the nobles and chief men now began to study 
Chinese books. For over three hundred years the 
Go-on pronunciation was the fashion. 



LETTERS, WRITING, AND NAMES 81 

About A. D. 605 it had become the custom for 
young Japanese students to go over to China and 
study there, as American lads often do in Europe. 
Five young men who had spent a year at what is 
now Singan, in Shensi province, China, on coming 
back home introduced a new style of pronuncia- 
tion, called the Kan-on. After twelve hundred 
years we find that the Kan-on has supplanted the 
Go-on. The literary and scientific men, govern- 
ment officers and newspaper editors all use the 
Kan-on, while the Buddhist priests and common 
folk still employ the older pronunciation. The 
To-on, another method, which is like the modern 
Mandarin dialect of China, is but little used. 
These changes of pronunciation remind us that in 
England the Anglo-Saxon, the Latin, and the 
Norman fashions had each its day, before modern 
English was formed. 

All this — that is, three or four different kinds 
of pronunciation, and the varying forms of speech, 
differing according to whether language is spoken 
or written, uttered by inferiors or by superiors — 
makes it very hard for a foreigner to learn the 
Japanese language thoroughly. 

When at first the Japanese began to write 
their own language, it was to them very n^uch 
as if we should try to express English with the 
characters copied from a tea-box. For one can 
write English with the Chinese characters as well 
as he can write Japanese. The islanders had at 



82 JAPAN 

first a hard time of it, trying in clumsy fashion 
to make the strange writing stand for Japanese 
ideas and words. It was a good deal like training 
an elephant to walk on his hind legs ; for Japanese 
words are long and musical, while Chinese words 
are as short as in baby talk. The way they did 
it was to take Chinese letters that sounded like 
or something like Japanese, and make them do 
duty for their own vernacular. This was very 
much as if we made the different parts of a 
charade or rebus serve our purpose. For example, 
if we wished to write such a word as "tremen- 
dous," and should make a picture of a tree, some 
men, and a dose of medicine, serve our purpose, 
we should not be doing very differently from the 
early Japanese. Indeed, the first attempts at 
writing of nearly all ancient nations were very 
much like trying to play charades on paper; 
only, instead of its being fun, it was slow and 
toilsome work. Nevertheless, the Japanese per- 
severed, and their first books were all written in 
this way, that is, the phonetic way, or according 
to sound. Hence the Kojiki, or Japanese Bible, 
though expressed in Chinese characters, cannot be 
read by a Chinaman, any more than we could read 
a telegram in cipher, though the words were in 
English. 

Suppose that an American in Europe had ar- 
ranged with his friends in New Orleans that " the- 
osophy " should mean send, " capitulate " mean 



LETTERS, WRITING, AND NAMES 83 

me, " Webster " mean ninety^ and " cataract " 
mean dollars. Then the telegram, " Theosophy 
capitulate Webster cataract," would be inter- 
preted, " Send me ninety dollars." This is about 
the way the Kojiki is written, and a literal render- 
ing into Japanese makes a jargon just like a 
cipher message. Only by the long study of many 
scholars have its secrets been unraveled. Even 
yet the translation of many of the sentences is 
very uncertain. 

Thus it happened that the Japanese letters 
took the form, not of an alphabet in which each 
letter stands for a sound, but of a syllabary, in 
which each letter stands for a syllable. There is 
no B, C, or D, etc., in Japanese, but there are Ba, 
Be, Bi, Bo, Bu ; Da, De, Di, Do, Du, etc., and 
the syllabary makes forty- eight letters. By means 
of little dots or marks which change, for example, 
lia into ha and pa^ seventythree syllables may be 
represented. Curiously enough, in China, Japan, 
and Corea, we have illustrations of the only three 
ways in which language is written ; the ideo- 
graphic, the syllabic, and the alphabetic. The 
Chinese use characters, the Japanese syllables, 
and the Cor cans letters. 

For hundreds of years the Japanese had not 
even a syllabary, but went on writing laboriously 
the Chinese, doing the mighty work and perform- 
ing the heavy tasks which an alphabet might have 
saved them. Then in the eighth century, just a 



84 JAPAN 

thousand years before our Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, a nobleman named Kibi invented or 
perfected tbe system of borrowed names called 
kana. This meant that he took only parts of 
the cumbrous Chinese characters to serve for let- 
ters, thus saving at each writing from two to ten 
strokes of the brush or pen ; and so a set of forty- 
eight side-letters, as they are called, came into use. 
To this day, these are used in dictionaries to spell 
foreign names. These are like our children's 
letters which they print before they can write. To 
get some general idea of what they are, we have 
only to look at f, the sign for " dollars," lb. for 
" pound," (&c. for "and so forth," or to the many 
special signs used in almanacs, astronomy, proof- 
sheets, music books, and in business writing. Yet 
the kana can represent exactly neither a Chinese 
nor any other foreign word. When the results 
of the Repliblican and Democratic conventions of 
1884 were telegraphed from the United States to 
Japan, the newspapers in Tokio announced that 
the American presidential candidates were Boo- 
ra-nii and Kee-ree-boo-ran-do, that is, Blaine and 
Cleveland were the names of the candidates. This 
is the nearest the Japanese could come in their 
writing. Double letters in a foreign language 
puzzle both the speaker and the writer. When 
I lived in Echizen my name was usually pro- 
nounced like the word " grease," or, in full, Wee- 
ree-ya-mii E-ri-yo-to Gu-ree-su. Another varia- 



LETTERS, WRITING, AND NAMES 85 

tioii was Gee-ree-wa-i-su. As tlie Chinese have 
no "r," so the Japanese have no "1." 

Our children first learn the printing and then 
the writing letters ; but to use a pen and write 
quickly, the letters must be run or joined together. 
The Chinese call these " grass " characters. It 
was a great step of progress when the clever priest 
Kobo, who died A. d. 835, invented or improved 
the hira kana or easy letters, by which one could 
write a long word, like " Onogoroshima," without 
lifting the pen off the paper of the copy-book. 
Kobo, who had traveled and studied in China, 
was so learned, and was such a famous fellow 
with the pen, that the funny artist Hokiisai pic- 
tures him as writing on a tablet with five brushes 
or pens all going at once. One is held in his 
mouth, and one by each foot and hand. This is 
like the tradition in the Koran, that Ezra, the 
Jewish scribe, could write with five pens in his 
hand at once. Kobo has also the credit of ar- 
ranging the Japanese syllabary, or i, 7*0, ha, into 
the form of a stanza. 

For centuries the Japanese children have read 
this stanza and committed it to memory. It 
often took many tears and many prayers to Mi- 
chizane, or Ten-jin, for the little fellows to master 
it, and, when done, it expressed a rather gloomy 
thought. Since even Kobo had to do some twist- 
ing to get the syllables into a form of Japanese 
doggerel (for it is not real poetry), perhaps we 



86 JAPAN 

may be excused for hammering them into an Eng- 
lish jingle : — 

Love and enjoyment disappear : 

What in our world endureth here ? 

E'en should this day in oblivion be rolled, 

'T was only a vision that leaves me but cold. 

For many centuries books were composed only 
in Chinese characters, and learning was confined 
chiefly to noblemen and people about the court. 
In modern times, books for the people, and espe- 
cially women and children, have been written in 
kana, which all can understand. 

One curious effect, largely due to the use of 
writing and the habit of spelling, was seen in the 
change of pronunciation of geographical names. 
In the course of centuries, even before the habit 
of writing was common, the old-time names of 
mountains, rivers, plains, and other landmarks 
were altered into the modern forms which we now 
see on the maps, and hear on Japanese lips. 

Mr. Skeat, in his etymological dictionary, lias 
pointed out the enormous influence which Eng- 
lish spelling has exerted on the pronunciation of 
names and words. Of course, those words which 
are used every day do not change in sound, but 
those only occasionally spoken will sooner or later 
be pronounced as they are written. This we see 
in English, which consists so largely of words 
which have come down from our Dutch and Ger- 
man ancestors, or, as we say, " Anglo-Saxons." 



LETTERS, WRITING, AND NAMES 87 

In Japan, such a change proceeded with ten- 
fold power when, by the imperial order and in 
the official language, the geographical names were 
written in government documents. The names 
were expressed in Chinese characters, but these 
were pronounced, not as the Chinese pronounce 
them, but only as Japanese throats and lips could 
utter them. Even the country folks had to speak 
the old names in the new way. When they could 
not, the names were altered to a fresh form. 
Then all must pronounce in the standard way, or 
be considered vulgar and boorish. 

A kind of census was made, and an encyclopae- 
dia or gazetteer of all the known places in the 
empire was compiled by order of the emperor as 
early as the eighth century. From that time 
forth, the polite or proper pronunciation of the 
name of a place was that used at the court, ac- 
cording to the characters with which it was writ- 
ten. In the ninth century, when the kana or al- 
phabet came into use, spelling, or expression of the 
separate sounds of a word, became fashionable. 
Then foreign words from Corea and China, or the 
names and sounds from the lips of the distant 
savages or uncouth people up in Yezo, could be 
written. Of course they could not be reproduced 
exactly as uttered, but they were pronounced after 
a fashion by the lords or ladies of the court, and 
this court or scholar's pronunciation became the 
standard one. It is true that the people might 



88 JAPAN 

use the local names of mountains or rivers somov 
what differently, but as this was looked at by the 
men who made the books, laws, and literature as 
vulgar, the written form gradually but surely be- 
came the correct one. In the course of centuries, 
many of the unwritten, aboriginal, archaic, and 
local pronunciations would also change. Thus it 
happens that the old Ainu names of mountains or 
rivers, places and landmarks, can hardly be recog- 
nized in the modern names given them. 

A fresh element of trouble to the student arises 
from the fact that the Chinese characters, first 
used to write the names, were chosen only for their 
sounds : but now, being accepted for their meaning, 
confusion reigns and the old Ainu meaning is lost. 
This, however, gives the Japanese an opportunity 
for endless discussions, jokes, and puns. Often it 
is as though one acted a charade, or wrote a rebus 
by making a picture of a dog, a mat, an eye, and 
a girl, and pronounced it " dog-mat-i-gal," thus de- 
riving the Greek word " dogmatical." One may 
here recall De Quincey's mock derivation of 
" Alexander the Great " from " all eggs in the 
grate " ! In spite of their changed form and sound, 
the geographical names, like those given by the red 
Indians to Wachusett or Niagara in America, are 
the oldest of all. What the original meaning of 
many of the province names is, not even the most 
learned Japanese scholars can tell ; but while they 
are modestly dumb, folks who go by the Chinese 



LETTERS, WRITING, AND NAMES 89 

characters and have a smattering of learning offer 
all sorts of explanations. 

The people conquered by Yamato Dake were 
then called Emishi, which is the same as the 
modern word Yebisu. The letters M and B are 
about the same in Japanese. All eastern Japan 
was anciently called Yezo, or the uncivilized re- 
gion, a name now applied to the great northern 
island. Kuanto, or the Broad East, another name 
anciently given, is still used. It means that part 
of Japan east of Kioto, and especially east of the 
great mountain-chain which may be called the 
spinal column of Hondo. 

After Kioto had been made the capital, the 
provinces were named with reference to their 
situation to the front or back of the imperial city. 
So we find, among the fourteen old provinces with 
names ending in zen or go — that is, fore or be- 
hind, front or rear — several pairs, such as Hizen 
and Higo, Uzen and Ugo. There are also several 
groups of three, which besides the endings zen 
and go have the middle term chiu, which means 
" central." Thus Echizen is the Echi (or the 
sunny place) fronting Kioto ; Etchiu, the Echi 
in the middle ; and Echigo, the Echi at the 
rear. Others end in no, which means " moor " or 
"plain"; in to, "road, or "path"; in yama, 
" mountain." Others, in addition to the old native 
name, now more or less obscured, have a second 
or alternate form ending in shiu, a Chinese word, 



90 JAPAN 

as Satsuma or Sasshiu ; Nagato or Choshiu, — 
naga and cho both meaning " long." 

The whole empire was arranged into do^ or re- 
gions, like our Eastern, Middle, Southern, or 
Western States. First of all came the Gokinai, 
or five home provinces, the old ancestral seats of 
the Yamato clan, in which are the old capital and 
graves of the Mikados, and out of the soil of 
which the oldest antiquities are dug up for the 
museums. Next comes the Tokaido, or Eastern 
Sea region, in which are fourteen provinces facing 
the sparkling waves of the Pacific Ocean. The 
Tokaido stretches from the old homeland to Hita- 
chi, which is north of Tokio, and in which is the 
famous city of Mito. 

Northward from the Tokaido, and running 
between the great central mountains and the 
sea, is the Tozando or Eastern Mountain region. 
Coming down on the west and colder side of 
Hondo, the Hokurikudo, or North region, lies 
between the mountains and the sea. Thence we 
still go southward, and, fronting China, we keep 
in the Mountain Back region, that is, in the 
shade of the morning sun. If we were on the 
strip of provinces fronting the Inland Sea and the 
east, we should be in the Mountain Front, or 
sunny side. 

Of those six provinces most of which are 
scoured by the Black Current, four are in 
Shikoku. They are named the Southern Sea 



LETTERS, WRITING, AND NAMES 91 

region. All the nine countries of Kiushiu Island 
are called collectively the Western Sea region. 
Then there are the "Two Islands," Iki and 
Tsushima. Further down, in the sunny south, 
is the Riu Kiu group of islands, the old " Eternal 
Land" of Japanese mythology. The group called 
Okinawa, or the Long Rope, is literally the tail- 
end of the empire, while up in the Northern Sea 
region are the storm-swept and foggy Thousand 
Islands stretching to Kamschatka. 

Another practice fostered by the art of writing 
was the bestowal and use of posthumous titles 
upon famous persons. In the eighth century, 
when the old legends, songs, poems, and liturgies 
were committed to writing, the first Mikados, 
gods, heroes, and renowned ancestors received 
high-sounding names, which henceforth became 
common in conversation. It must not be sup- 
posed that the people who saw and fought or 
hunted with Jimmu Tenno ever heard of such a 
name or title ; but, a thousand years or more 
after his death, or at least after the time in which 
he is supposed to have lived, this title was in- 
vented, being composed, like most if not aU of 
such posthumous names, of Chinese terms mispro- 
nounced by Japanese. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE NOBLE FAMILIES AND THEIR POLITICS. 

In the early centuries the sons and descendants 
of the Mikados had no special family names. In 
China it is the rule that in every generation a 
step lower is made, until in the ninth generation 
the descendants of the emperor mingle with the 
people. In early Japan, the families of impe- 
rial blood took the general name of O, meaning 
"king" or "royal," which name was dropped 
after the fourth generation. 

After this, special names, like those of Tachi- 
bana, Sugawara, Fujiwara, Minamoto, Taira, etc., 
were besto\^ed by order of the emperor. In the 
development of their history it was seen that 
certain employments, duties, offices, and profes- 
sions became hereditary in particular families. 
Literature and education were monopolized by 
the Sugawara and Oye, law and jurisprudence by 
the Miyoshi and Kotsiiki, medicine by the Waga 
and Niwa families. There were other families 
still more famous in war and politics. 

The most renowned line of soldiers was that of 
the Minamoto. The founder of this family or 
clan was Tsunemoto. He was the grandson of 



NOBLE FAMILIES AND THEIR POLITICS 93 

the Mikado Seiwa (839-880). The Minamoto 
family crest is made by arranging three gentian 
flowers above the same number of bamboo leaves. 
Their battle standard was a white flag, and their 
favorite color was white. Many noble families, 
and all the great Shoguns and Tycoons who 
afterwards ruled at Kamakura or Yedo, claimed 
descent from the first Minamoto, and after A. D. 
1192 no one could be a commander-in-chief or 
general unless he were of this stock. The shorter 
or Chinese form of the name is Genji. The 
Genji grew to be a mighty clan of many thou- 
sands of adherents, like those of the White Rose 
in English history. 

The Taira was also a military family. The 
Chinese form of the name is Heike. Their crest 
was a butterfly, and their color or banner was red. 
The family was founded by Takamochi, a great- 
grandson of the Mikado Kwammu (782-805). 
In the twelfth century, when at the height of 
their power, they numbered many thousands, like 
those of the Red Rose of England. Like the 
rival Ifouses of York and Lancaster, the whites 
and reds, or Genji and Heike, were rivals and at 
feud. 

Gradually, also, a system of heraldry was de- 
veloped, and each of the noble families had crests 
or badges. By intermarriage, these crests grew 
to be something like European coats-of-arms. As, 
however, the Japanese fought with two-handed 



94 JAPAN 

swords, they could not use sliields. Hence the 
blazonry so complex in Europe, and which the 
knights usually quartered on their shields, was 
with the Japanese chivalry very simple. Usually 
it consisted o£ a flower, an animal, or some simple 
device easily recognized. 

0£ the families celebrated for their civic abili- 
ties, the Fujiwara was the most conspicuous. The 
name means Wistaria-meadow, and was granted to 
their ancestor in the year 670. This pretty blue 
flower, now common in our country as a house or 
wall vine, blooms in May before its leaves are 
developed. The first syllables of the native name 
sound like those of the mountain Fuji, or Fuji 
Yama, and the foreign name is from that of Dr. 
Wistar, of Philadelphia. The Fujiwara fam- 
ily was founded by Nakatomi, an adviser of the 
Mikado, said also to have built a storehouse at 
Kamakura. • There are now five families nearest 
the imperial family itself, and from which the em- 
press is taken, that are descended from the original 
Fujiwara stock. Unlike the Minamoto and Taira, 
the Fujiwara nobles never coveted land or military 
honors, and so were not subject to feuds or wars. 

We have told of the Sugawara line of scholars. 
Another famous family is the Tachibana, founded 
A. D. 736, from which the tutors of the imperial 
children have usually been chosen. There are 
other noble families who are descended from 
Mikados, and were formerly called huge, or court 



NOBLE FAMILIES AND THEIB POLITICS 95 

nobles ; but the four families mentioned are the 
most famous in history. 

While the leading men of the Genji and Heike 
were usually far away from the capital, fighting- 
savages and extending the boundaries of the 
Mikado's empire, the Fujiwara men became the 
successful politicians at home in the palace. Put- 
ting in practice the American motto that " to the 
victors belong the spoils," they filled most of the 
offices with their sons and nephews. Further, 
they acted very much as successful political par- 
ties do everywhere. Not satisfied with having 
their relations in the offices already in existence, 
they created new ones for the men of their clan. 

In the year 888, the title of Kuambaku, the 
highest in the land, was created and conferred on 
a Fujiwara noble. The word refers to the bolt 
on the inside of a door, and this Japanese Saint 
Peter could thus pull back the bolt and admit 
to the Son of Heaven only those whom he was 
pleased to favor. Only on the throne was the 
Mikado greater. It was not long before this 
great office was made hereditary in the Fujiwara 
family. Their ambition made them dictators of 
the throne, which in time they practically owned. 
This success they secured by marrying their 
daughters to the Mikados, and for centuries the 
empresses were of Fujiwara blood. 

We must not, however, suppose that all the 
Genji and Heike were soldiers, or that every 



96 JAPAN 

Fujiwara courtier was a politician. On the con- 
trary, many famous authors and artists bore these 
names. Indeed, it may be said that as early as 
the seventh century the art of painting was well 
established at Nara, and that by the tenth century 
the native style, so brilliant in color and often as 
fine as miniature-painting, more like the Persian 
than the Chinese, and called the Yamato or pure 
Japanese method, was the reigning fashion. This 
is well proved by the novel called the Genji 
Monogatari, in which the lady author describes 
the competition of the painters and the award of 
the judges. 

Probably the first and greatest of the early 
native painters was Kanaoka, who painted the 
portraits of Chinese sages and Buddhist saints, 
besides landscapes, figures, and horses. Although 
few of his great works have survived, his fame is 
kept alive even in the mouths of the common 
people by those legends which the monks and 
story-tellers so loved to tell. It is said of a horse 
painted on a screen in a temple near Kioto, by 
Kanaoka, that at night it would quit its frame 
and gallop wildly over the farmers' rice-fields. 
The country folks found out the devastator of 
their land by noticing the mud that clung to the 
hoofs in the picture. They put out the eyes of 
the picture, and after that Kanaoka's horse made 
no more night excursions. Another of the same 
artist's painted horses had the habit of roaming 



NOBLE FAMILIES AND THEIR POLITICS 97 

in the imperial treasury gardens, and eating up 
the plant we call the Japan clover. In this case, 
instead of blinding the painted creature, it was 
fastened within its frame by painting a halter. 
Other similar stories tell of a cuckoo, painted on a 
fan, which uttered a note every time the fan was 
opened; of Tsunenori's lion, that made the dogs 
bark and fly at it ; and of Sesshiu's rats, changed 
from ink and water into scampering bits of flesh 
and blood. Even the old story of the fight be- 
tween the lion and the unicorn has its parallel in 
Japan. The carved wooden lion and the Koma- 
inu or Corean dog — a hideous creature seen in 
stone in front of Shinto temples — once fell to 
quarreling, one knocking the other down to the 
ground. Stories like these are told about many 
famous statues, pictures, carvings, swords, writ- 
ings, and indeed about almost all things that are 
considered works of art in Japan. 

Between politicians and priests, and their own 
desire to cultivate art, the Mikados had little 
to do with actual government. Often they were 
mere boys ; or, after reigning a few years, they 
shaved off their hair and became cloistered monks. 
Often they had personal ambition to become ar- 
tists. Some lived privately in debauchery. Many 
of them spent their days in the study of Buddh- 
ism, and in the enjoyment and patronage of art 
and letters. As, however, the emperor became of 
less importance as a person or a ruler, his honors 



98 JAPAN 

and dignity were magnified to the common people, 
to whom he became gradually invisible. He lived 
behind a curtain, and was seen only by his wives 
and women of the court, and by his high ministers. 
His feet were supposed never to touch the earth. 
To common folks he was a god. Even when he 
rode out to see the flowers or a waterfall, or to 
attend a poetry party with his courtiers, the cha- 
riot or cart, drawn by bullocks, was closed with 
curtains made of bamboo ; and the place where 
he lunched or wrote verses was inclosed with 
woven stuff. In short, the real power of govern- 
ment was in the hands of the courtiers of the 
palace, while that of the emperor was very nearly 
a cipher. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SOCIAL LIFE IN KIOTO. 

Social life in Kioto was the standard for that 
in good society everywhere throughout the empire. 
Etiquette was cultivated with almost painful ear- 
nestness, and the laws about costume were equally 
rigid. Tea was introduced into Japan by a 
Buddhist priest in the year 805, and soon became 
a common drink. The oldest tea plantations and 
the most luscious leaves are at Uji, near Kioto. 
The preparation and serving of the beverage were 
matters upon which much attention was bestowed. 
The making of cups, dishes, and all facilities for 
drinking was greatly stimulated by the use of the 
hot drink, and when the potter's wheel was brought 
over from Corea the ceramic art entered upon a 
new era of development. 

Flowers and gardens were much enjoyed, and 
visits of ceremony were many and prolonged. 
The invention of the fan w^as not at first thought 
to be an aid to good manners, but it soon won its 
way to favor. As early as the seventh century it 
came into use for personal comfort. In course 
of time the fan developed into many varieties. 
The huge^ or court nobles, had one kind, and the 

LOFC. 



100 JAPAN 

court ladies, with their long hair sweeping down 
their back to their feet and arrayed in white and 
crimson silk, had another. In art, we see that 
the Dragon-queen of the Under-world holds a flat 
fan with double wings. The long-nosed King of 
the Tengus, or mountain sprites, who is said to 
have taught Yoshitsune his wisdom and secrets 
of power, holds a fan exactly like the old pulpit 
feather fans which it once was thought proper for 
clergymen to make use of. The judges at wres- 
tling matches flourish a peculiar sort, while in war 
the wight who received a thwack over the noddle 
with the huge iron-boned fan might lie in gore. 
The firemen of Kioto, and the men in the proces- 
sion in honor of the Sun Goddess at Ise, carry 
fans that would cool the face of a giant. 

The earliest fans were all of the flat kind, but 
in the seventh century it is said that a man of 
Tamba, seeing that bats could fold their wings, 
imagined that the motion and effect could be imi- 
tated. Accordingly he made the ogi, or fan that 
opens and shuts. This was a great advantage, 
securing economy in space and ease of use. An- 
other story declares that when the widow of a 
young Taira noble, slain in the civil wars, retired 
to a temple to hide her grief, she cured the abbot 
of a fever by fanning him. Folding a piece of 
paper in plaits and then opening it out, mutter- 
ing incantations the while, the lady brought great 
prosperity to the temple, for thereafter the priests 



SOCIAL LIFE IN KIOTO 101 

excelled in making folding fans. From the sale 
of these novelties a steady revenue flowed into 
the temple. In time the name of this temple was 
adopted by fan-makers all over the country. As 
a shelter of the face or bare head from the sun, — 
for hats and bonnets were not fashionable in Old 
Japan, — for use as trays or salvers to hand 
flowers, letters, or presents to friends or to one's 
master, as thoughtful defenses against one's breath 
while talking to superiors, and for a thousand 
polite uses, to say nothing of its value as an arti- 
cle of dress, the folding fan is a distinctly Japa- 
nese gift to civilization. It had many centuries 
of history and honor in Japan before the Chinese 
borrowed the invention. In the caste of fashion 
the flat fan, which too often sank to the level of a 
dustpan, grain-winnower, or fire-blower, is in the 
lowest grade. 

The chief food, as well as the ceremonial drink, 
came from rice. This grain was imported from 
Corea, and very early became the standard article 
of diet among the upper classes. The Japanese 
have never yet learned to like bread, nor is rice 
usually the food of the poorer people. The best 
rice is raised in Higo. It is cooked, served, and 
flavored in a great variety of ways, and many 
extracts and preparations, such as gluten, moch% 
or pastry flour, and alcohol, are made from it. 
The making of sake, by which we mean beer, 
wine, or brandy made from rice, is as old as the 



102 JAPAir 

first commerce with Corea. It was the favorite 
drink of Japanese men and gods. The festivals in 
celebration of the planting, reaping, and offering 
of rice in the sheaf, or hulled and cleaned, and 
of the fermentation or presentation of the liquor 
to the gods, form a notable feature in the Shinto 
religion. 

This sake or brewed rice was the drink enjoyed 
at feasts, poetry parties, picnics, and evening gath- 
erings. Like tea, it was heated and drunk when 
hot. Besides the pleasures of music, poetry, and 
literature, cards, checkers, games of skill and 
chance, of many kinds, even to the sniffing of 
perfumes, helped the hours of leisure to pass 
pleasantly. 

Outdoor sports were also diligently cultivated 
hj these elegantly dressed lords and ladies of the 
capital. The ladies amused themselves by catch- 
ing fire-flies and various brilliantly colored or 
singing insects, by feeding the goldfish in the 
garden ponds, or viewing the moon and the land- 
scape. The delights of the young men were in 
horsemanship, archery, foot-ball, and falconry. 
The art of training falcons to hunt and kill the 
smaller or defenseless birds was copied from 
Corea, and has been practiced in Japan some- 
what over a thousand years. Cock-fights, dog- 
matches, and fishing by means of cormorants were 
also common. A method of racing and shooting 
from horseback at dogs, with blunt arrows, was 



SOCIAL LIFE IN KIOTO 103 

cultivated for the sake of skill in riding. Polo is 
said to have come from Persia into China and 
thence to Japan, where it is called ball-striking, 
or da-kiu. A polo outfit with elegant costume 
and the liveliest of ponies was costly, so that polo, 
like hawking, was always an aristocratic game. 
The Warrior's Dance has been described as a 
"giant quadrille in armor." The more robust 
and exciting exercise of hunting the boar, deer, 
bear, and other wild animals was often indulged 
in by the military men in time of peace, in order 
to keep up their vigor and discipline. In hunt- 
ing, the bold riders and footmen could have some- 
thing like the excitement of war with only a small 
amount of its danger. 

This curious social life in old Kioto is quite 
fully shown in Japanese art, in books and pictures, 
and the theatre, and is a favorite subject for the 
poets, novelists, and artists. On fans, paper nap- 
kins, lacquer ware, carved ivories, bronzes, sword- 
hilts, and all the rich and strange art-works of Old 
Japan, this court life can be pleasantly studied. 
It was a state of things which existed before feu- 
dalism came in completely to alter the face of the 
Mikado's empire, and before Chinese learning, 
pedantry, and literary composition cramped the 
native genius. He who understands the method 
and meaning of the artist has a great fund of 
enjoyment. The painter and carver, or even the 
decorator on a five-cent fan, tells his tale well, and 



104 JAPAN 

one who knows Japanese life from its ancient and 
mediaeval literature, as well as by modern travel 
and study, needs no interpreter. 

Best of all, however, life in the Mikado's capital 
is reflected in the classic fiction written in the 
Middle Ages, and mostly by ladies of the court. 
From a literary point of view, the women of 
Japan did more to preserve and develop their 
native language than the men. The masculine 
scholars used Chinese, and composed their books 
in what was as Latin to the mass of the people. 
The lady writers employed their own beautiful 
speech, and such famous monogatari, or novels, as 
the SagoroQio, Genji, Ise, and others, besides hun- 
dreds of volumes of poetry in pure classical Japa- 
nese, are from their pens. A number of famous 
novels, the oldest of which is the Old Bamboo- 
cutter's Story, which dates from the tenth century, 
picture th'e life and work, the loves and adven- 
tures, of the lads and lasses, priests and warriors, 
lords and ladies, in this extremely refined, highly 
polished, and very licentious society of Kioto a 
thousand years or less ago. Those who would 
study it carefully must read Mr. Chamberlain's 
" Classical Poetry of the Japanese," or Mr. Suyd- 
matsii's " Genji Monogatari." Miss Harris's " Log 
of a Japanese Journey " is a rendering in English 
of the Tosa Niki, or diary of the voyage from 
Tosa to Kioto of the famous poet Tsurayuki. 

The Tosa Niki book is a great favorite with 



SOCIAL LIFE IN KIOTO 105 

native students on account of its beauty o£ style. 
Tsurayuki was appointed by the Mikado to be 
governor of Tosa. After serving four years he 
starts homeward for Kioto by ship and carriage, 
or rather by junk and bullock-cart. He left Tosa 
in January, a. d. 935, and the diary of his voyage 
is written in woman's style of writing, that is, in 
pure Japanese. He calls himself *' a certain per- 
son," and is a jolly good-natured fellow ; always, 
when opportunity serves, writing poetry and en- 
joying the sake-cup. As Japanese junks usually 
wait for the wind, sail only in the daytime, or at 
least not all night, and keep out of storms if pos- 
sible, he stopped at many places, where official 
friends called upon him, and presents were ex- 
changed, cups of sake drunk, and poems written. 
Most of the presents had verses tied to them, but 
the pheasants had a flowering branch of the plum 
tree attached. We translate a stanza : — 

"As o'er the waves ye urge, 
While roars the whit'ning' surge, 
Louder shall rise my cry 
That left behind am I, — " 

whereat the traveler notes in his diary that the 
poet must have a pretty loud voice. He tells of 
the storks and the fir-trees which have been com- 
rades for a thousand years ; how the passengers 
went ashore at one place to take a hot bath ; how 
a sailor caught a tai^ or splendid red fish, for his 
dinner ; jests at the bush of the man in the moon ; 



106 JAPAN 

throws Ms metal mirror into the sea to quiet the 
storm raised by the god of Sumi-Yoshi ; escapes 
the pirates, with whom he had as governor dealt 
very severely; and completes his sea journey, 
not at Osaka, which did not then exist, but at 
Yamazaki, near the capital. There he waits for 
a bullock-car to come from Kioto, which he must 
of course enter in state as becomes a huge, or 
noble. 

This charming little book shows first that human 
nature in Japan a thousand years ago was won- 
derfully like that of to-day in Japan, or anywhere 
else ; that good style will make a book live as 
long as the rocks ; and that in those days the 
spoken idiom differed very little from the lan< 
guage employed in literature. Brave Tsurayuki I 
He wrote in " woman's style " really because he 
loved his native tongue, and did not want to see 
it overlaid 'by the Chinese. In our days not a 
few Japanese are heartily ashamed that their 
own beautiful language has not been more devel- 
oped by scholars. So much dependence on China 
has paralyzed originality and weakened intellect. 
After fifteen hundred years, the patriotic Japa- 
nese feels ashamed that the literary and intellec- 
tual product of his country is so small, and that 
the best work in his native tongue has been done 
by women. No wonder he does not always take 
kindly to the fulsome flatteries of Europeans who 
tell him what a wonderful fellow he is, and how 



SOCIAL LIFE IN KIOTO 107 

much superior Japanese civilization is to that of 
Europe ! How he really feels about the matter 
is shown in his eager desire, on the one hand, to 
absorb all the ideas and adopt all the inventions 
of the foreigners, and, on the other, to bridge the 
gulf between the spoken and the written forms of 
his own vernacular. 

We must now turn from the scenes which 
prompted the devout patriot to bow in gratitude 
before the shrine of Heaven and give thanks for 
" peace within the four seas," and tell the story of 
civil war. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE WARS OF THE GENJI AND HEIKE. 

For centuries tlie two soldier clans, the Genji 
and Heike, had been busy in many wars, at the 
ends of the empire, until every tribe was subdued, 
and " all was peace under Heaven." They were 
jealous rivals, however, and had many quarrels 
among themselves. When campaigns were over, 
and the leaders came to live in Kioto, they began 
to think that it would be a good thing to possess 
the palace, and the Mikado, and the fat civil 
offices, just as the Fujiwara nobles had done. The 
Japanese " Wars of the Roses " began in the 
twelfth centtiry. The Taira clan was then led by 
a man of great talents and power named Kiyo- 
mori. The head of the Minamoto house was 
Yoshitomo. In tbe year 1156 these clans quar- 
reled and came to blows while trying to get pos- 
session of the imperial palace. The Minamoto 
were beaten and driven out of Kioto. 

The Taira men, having won the palace, now dic- 
tated the policy of the emperor, and all Japan was 
virtually under the control of Kiyomori. In 1167, 
when fifty-six years old, he reached the highest 
office which a subject in Japan could obtain. He 



WABS OF THE GENJI AND HEIKE 109 

was made Dai-jo-Dai-jin, which means the Great 
Government's Great Officer. He turned the Fuji- 
wara men out of office and put in his own clans- 
men. He banished nobles, built palaces, moved 
the capital, made his daughter the wife of the em- 
peror, and even dictated who should be Mikado. 
To what higher point could he reach before being 
called upon to "change his world," as the Buddh- 
ists say, or, in common language, to die ? 

Drunk with triumph, he resolved to exterminate 
the Minamoto. By means of hired assassins, and 
orders sent to all the guards at the barrier-gates 
built across all the great roads and mountain 
passes, he seized, imprisoned, or slaughtered most 
of the Genji leaders. To various parts of the 
country, however, many Genji mothers fled, found 
hiding-places, and reared their sons to manhood. 
Tametomo, the giant-like archer, had the muscles 
of his arm cut, and was exiled. When his arm 
healed up he escaped, sunk one of the Taira ships 
sent to recapture him, and escaped to the Eiu Kiu 
islands in the far south. There, it is believed, he 
became the father of Sunten, the first king of this 
archipelago, the name of which means either the 
Sleeping Dragon, or the Hanging Globes. In old 
maps the name is printed Loo Choo. 

In order to get possession of Tokiwa, the beau- 
tiful concubine of the Genji leader Yoshitomo, 
Kiyomori seized her mother. In Japan, the duty 
of a daughter to her mother is considered greater 



110 JAPAN 

than that even to her children. Tokiwa the beau- 
tiful had fled with her three sons. The names of 
two of them, Yoritomo and Yoshitsune, then a 
little baby, are among those most famous in 
Japan. 

Dazzled by Tokiwa's beauty, Kiyomori not only 
saved the mother's life, but moved by her prayers, 
yet against the warnings of his retainers, allowed 
the three boys to live. Yoritomo was banished 
to an island off Idzu, then the Siberia of Japan. 
Yoshitsune, when a few years older, was sent to 
a monastery near Kioto to be made a Buddhist 
priest. 

The little boy, who had a ruddy face and a fiery 
temper, was so unmanageable and mischievous 
that the shavelings called him a "young bull." 
When the boy asked the monks to let him go up 
north with an iron merchant who lived in Mutsu, 
the brethreil were only too glad to get rid of him. 
Yoshitsune spent his life until past twenty-one in 
the service of a Fujiwara nobleman in out-door 
exercises. He thus became a soldier of highest 
reputation for courage, skill, and honor. 

Yoritomo in exile grew up under the eye of two 
Taira officers who had been appointed to watch 
him. He trained himself to be patient and to 
control his feelings. He cultivated the virtues of 
courtesy, valor, and endurance. When grown to 
manhood he married a beautiful girl named Ma- 
sago, whose father was Tokimasa, of the Hojo 



WARS OF THE GENJI AND HEIEE 111 

family, who had vowed to help Yoritomo when his 
opportunity should come. 

Even when the boy Yoritomo was being taken 
from Kioto into exile, the farmers who saw his 
striking countenance said it was like letting a 
tiger loose. In the year 1180, the time came for 
the young tiger to make his first spring. The 
tyrant Kiyomori in Kioto had become so insolent 
that one of the imperial princes plotted to over- 
throw him. He sent out letters to all the Mina- 
moto retainers to rise in arms. Some refused in 
scorn, saying it was like mice rising against a cat ; 
others gathered themselves together under the 
white flag. 

In the famous Hakone mountains, Yoritomo 
and the Genji men fought two battles. Although 
beaten, more followers joined him, and he chose 
the village of Kamakura as his headquarters. 
Here, in the seventh century, so legend goes, the 
ancestor of the Fujiwaras, when on a pious pil- 
grimage, spent a night near the site, and in his 
dreams was told by the kami or gods to bury or 
lay in store a precious sickle which he carried 
with him. He did so, and thus the place received 
its name of Kama-kura, or Sickle-storehouse. 
Here, also, at a place called " Crane Slope," only 
a century before, Yoritomo's grandfather had built 
a shrine to Ojin, or Hachiman, the god of war, in 
gratitude for victory. Here Yoritomo laid out a 
city and gathered his army. The place was easily 



112 JAPAN 

defended, for it lies in a valley inclosed by hill&, 
and outlooking upon the seashore. There are 
entrances to it at each point of the compass, that 
from the north being a road cut through the solid 
rock. 

Yoritomo marched to the Fuji river to meet the 
Heike army sent from Kioto against him. There 
his brother Yoshitsune from the north and many 
others joined him. Before a battle could be 
fought the Taira host retreated. They were 
scared away at night, it is said, by the trick of a 
deserter, who went among the wild fowls on the 
.river banks, and purposely drove the birds from 
their roosts. They made such a din with their 
wings and throats that the Taira soldiers, thinking 
it was on account of a night attack from their 
enemies, fled in disorderly retreat. Returning to 
Kamakura, the work of building the city went on, 
while the G5nji recruits came pouring in. The 
whole East seemed now in a state of uprising, 
and the empire ready to burst into the flames of 
civil war. 

Meanwhile Kiyomori lay dying in Kioto. When 
facing death, the great soldier's words were not 
like those of Christ on the cross, who prayed that 
his torturers might be forgiven, but of David, who 
commanded Solomon not to let his enemies reach 
their graves in peace. Kiyomori's only regret on 
his dying bed was, that he had not seen the head 
of Yoritomo cut off. " After I am dead," he com- 



WARS OF THE GENJI AND HEIEE 113 

manded, " do not propitiate Buddha on my behalf, 
do not chant the sacred liturgies. Only do this, — 
cut off the head of Yoritomo and hang it on my 
tomb." This, however, was never done, for Yori- 
tomo died many years afterwards with his head on. 

The Minamoto army now moved from the east 
to the west, and resistlessly on to victory. The 
long civil war of five years had begun in earnest. 
The prize was Kioto and the imperial palace. 
After several bloody battles the city was won, a 
new Mikado set on the throne, and the property 
of the fugitive Taira confiscated. Their palace 
near Hiogo was captured by Yoshitsune, who pur- 
sued them southward to the Straits of Shimo- 
noseki, the place of repeated naval battles in 
Japanese history. Here, in May, 1185, led by 
Yoshitsune, the fleet of the Genji attacked the 
vessels of the Heike. While the Genji were all 
men and fighters, the Heike were encumbered 
with their women and children. Over a thousand 
war junks were engaged under the opposing white 
and red flags, and the bloody battle lasted for 
hours. 

In this, the greatest of sea-fights in Japanese 
annals, the Heike as a clan were annihilated. 

The Genji men took vengeance on their enemies 
and put to death hundreds of Taira boys. Many 
mothers fled to hiding-places, and some youths of 
Taira blood were reared to manhood, but changed 
their names. The women and many of the com- 



114 JAPAN 

mon soldiers and retainers were spared. In the 
month following, the victorious army enjoyed a 
triumph in Kioto. They exhibited their spoils 
and prisoners, and processions and festivals occu- 
pied many days. 

The awful event at Shimonoseki made a great 
impression on the people, and especially upon the 
fishermen and sailors in the region of the great 
battle. In the temples at Shimonoseki there are 
striking pictures of the struggle. 

Many are the legends which tell how the un- 
quiet ghosts of the Taira raise storms, and appear 
to mariners at night. On one occasion, as Yoshi- 
tsune in full armor was crossing the straits, the 
waves were lashed to fury by a tempest which 
threatened to founder the ship. The sails flapped 
wildly, and the ship refused to obey her rudder. 
Out on the tops of the curling spray stood myr- 
iads of pale-faced and angry shades of the dead. 
Ghastly with wounds, they threatened dire calam- 
ity to the victor who had sent their souls into the 
nether world. Yoshitsune, undaunted, stood on 
deck, and with his sword struck vainly at the 
ghosts that would not down, cutting nothing but 
the air. Only when Benkei, the gigantic priest- 
warrior, threw down his sword, and pulling out 
his beads began to exorcise the spirits by appro- 
priate Buddhist prayers, did the storm cease and 
the shades disappear. 

Even in our own day the fishermen tell stories 



WABS OF THE GENJI AND IIEIKJ§: 115 

of ghosts which rise out of the sea at night and 
beg for a dipper. These ghosts are the Taira 
men slain in battle, and condemned by the King 
of the World Under the Sea to cleanse the ocean 
of its stain of blood. The boatmen always give 
them a dipper which has no bottom, else they 
would swamp the boat by filling it with sea- water. 
The restless souls, long ago condemned to bail out 
the sea and cleanse it of its stain of blood, still 
keep hopelessly at work. 

The fishermen, however, say that the Taira 
ghosts, in these late days, only occasionally appear. 
For centuries after the battle they used to rise up 
in hosts. A great temple sacred to Amida, the 
Boundlessly Compassionate Buddha, was erected 
long ago at Shimonoseki to appease the wrath of 
the spirits. Since then they have been quiet. 
Evidently their ghosts have taken the shape of 
shellfish, as Buddhist doctrine teaches. A pecu- 
liar kind of crab is found in the Straits. On 
their backs may be traced the figure of an angry 
man. These are called Heike-gani, or Heike 
crabs, and the fisher folks say they were not 
known to exist here until after the Taira were 
slaughtered in the great battle. A few years ago 
plaques of copper, inscribed with the story of the 
conflict and a description of the crab, were sold 
to tourists. Many Japanese are fond of travel- 
ing to visit the sites of old battlefields, and places 
famous for scenery or described in poetry, and 
the copper-engravers drove a thriving trade. 



116 JAPAN 

When the Taira army fled from Kioto they 
carried off the Mikado and three sacred regalia, 
the mirror, ball, and sword. The little boy-Mikado 
Antoku, who was a grandson of Kiyomori, was 
put in care of his grandmother, Kiyomori's widow, 
who was a Buddhist nun. In the battle, the nun 
with the boy-emperor in her arms leaped into the 
sea, so as not to be taken alive. The boy's mother 
Taigo followed, vainly trying to save the child, 
and all three were drowned. 

The three sacred emblems were recovered and 
brought to Kioto, but it was not until nearly 
three hundred years afterward that the great 
Taiko had a monument erected to the young 
Mikado's memory. It was placed on a ledge of 
rocks in the channel of the rushing waters. Sev- 
eral score of the Taira men who were not killed 
fled to the mountain fastnesses in Higo. Here 
their descendants have lived. Their very exis- 
tence was unknown and unsuspected until about 
a hundred years ago, when it was discovered that 
in the veins of these secluded people, who lived 
roughly as hunters and trappers, ran the blood of 
the Heike. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

YORITOMO AT KAMAKURA. 

While part of the Kamakura army was fight* 
ing in the southwest, Yoritomo himself made a 
campaign in the north in Mutsu and Dewa. He 
was everywhere victorious ; and now he who had 
left the capital as an exile, hardly certain of his 
life, reentered Kioto in splendor and with a mag- 
nificent re,tinue. Both the reigning and the clois- 
tered emperor received him with distinguished 
consideration. Every visit he made consumed 
several hours by the water-clock, showing how 
much the emperor delighted in him. When they 
saw his elegantly attired companions and their 
fine dress and manners, the old inhabitants of the 
city and the court nobles were surprised. They 
could hardly believe that such wealth and cultiva- 
tion of the arts of dress, display, and etiquette 
existed in the east. They had supposed that part 
of the empire to be poor, and comparatively bar- 
barous. They ought to have known better ; for 
by this time the Buddhist priests had carried 
books and learning into many places in the north 
and east, while not a few civil and military men 
of noble descent had settled in various towns and 



118 JAPAN 

villages, taking their family names from tlie neigh- 
borhoods in which they dwelt. Many of them 
afterwards rose to great fame, as we shall see. 

Yoritomo made costly presents, and after a 
round of feasting, festivals, and games which de- 
lighted the people and added to his popularity, 
returned to Kamakura loaded with honors, and 
with powers greater than any ever granted to a 
subject. In a word, when Yoritomo left Kioto 
the second time, instead of being an exile he 
faced the rising sun as the virtual ruler of all 
Japan. The military age of the Mikado's empire 
had begun. 

The campaign against the Heik^ was (conducted 
chiefly by Yoshitsune. During the war in the 
southwest, Yoritomo had remained in the east at 
Kamakura, busy in affairs of government, for he 
had a genius for statesmanship as well as for 
strategy an'd tactics. In his civil policy he was 
so successful that soon the robbers were put down, 
and the highways made safe for travel. The 
warlike Buddhist monks, who had made their 
monasteries little better than the castles of robber 
barons, were curbed, and good government every- 
where in eastern Japan succeeded to misrule. 
Yoritomo established a council of state, and tribu- 
nals for the trial of violent offenders. He encour- 
aged every one to offer suggestions or criticisms, 
and to propose improvements. The petition-box 
was always open to those who had complaints to 



YORITOMO AT KAMAKUBA 119 

make. Soon it came to pass that the Kioto 
officers of the treasury, seeing how the tide was 
turning, came to live in Kamakura. Yoritomo 
eagerly availed himself of their experience to in- 
crease and husband his revenues. Thus it seemed 
as if the eastern town was to be the actual capital 
of the country. 

Yoritomo craftily took every opportunity to 
extend his own and his family influence. His 
shrewd father-in-law, named Hojo Tokimasa, 
helped him. After the Taira had been annihi- 
lated, Yoritomo requested the Mikado to appoint 
five army officers, all Yoritomo' s relatives, as 
governors of provinces. This was agreed upon. 
Yoshitsune was at once made governor of lyo. 

This was a tremendous step towards feudalism 
and military despotism, that army officers should 
be set to rule provinces, instead of civil officers 
appointed from the court. Formerly, the double 
business of the civilian governors who were sent 
out from Kioto, and who held office for four 
years, was, first, to collect the taxes which formed 
the revenue of the government, and, second, to 
put down violence and rapine. When the impe- 
rial court appointed Yoritomo to be the Chief 
Constable of the Realm, he craftily proposed that 
the authority in each province should be divided, 
the civil governor attending to the collection of 
revenue, and the military governor putting down 
the robbers and rebels. Still further, he requested 



120 JAPAN 

that these military governors should be his own 
relatives, and also that they should be under his 
control from Kamakura. This double request 
was granted, for Yoritomo's influence at Kioto 
was tremendous. Had not his Genji ancestors 
conquered nearly all northern Japan for the 
throne ? Was not his father-in-law in command 
of the garrison at Kioto, and did not the Mikado 
Gotoba owe his elevation to Yoritomo, and ought 
not brave soldiers to be rewarded ? 

So, gradually, it was seen that, while the name 
and shadow of government remained at Kioto, 
the reality and substance were at Kamakura. In 
1192, Yoritomo attained the zenith of honor, and 
was made Sei-i Tai Shogun. 

This long title means Rebel-Subduing Great 
General. It had been in use nearly four hundred 
years as a purely military title, but Yoritomo 
made it mfean more than ever it meant before. 
In his hands and those of his successors it meant 
Keeper or Mayor of the Palace, and the virtual 
ruler of the country. The office and title lasted 
until 1868. The Shoguns and Tycoons, who ruled 
during nearly seven hundred years, all professed 
to be following this precedent established by 
Yoritomo. They were his successors, and of 
Minamoto blood. 

Kamakura now became a great city, and all 
government was divided between the throne and 
the camp. It was a duarchy, or double govern- 
ment. 



YORITOMO AT KAMAKURA 121 

Yoritomo was one of the ablest men Japan 
ever produced. Yet he was in character jealous 
and cruel. He did not like it that Yoshitsune, 
his brother, had won such brilliant victories, and 
was so praised by all. A man named Kajiwara 
poisoned the mind of Yoritomo with slander 
against Yoshitsune. So, instead of welcoming 
his younger brother kindly, Yoritomo persecuted 
him to the death. Indeed, it was usually his way 
to handle cruelly those who had once served him. 
Selfish and heartless, his memory is execrated, 
while that of Yoshitsune is honored. 

To-day Kamakura is only a country town of 
about six thousand people. The foreign people 
of Yokohama make use of it as a seaside resort, 
or for picnics and excursions. Yet at one time, 
in its best days, it contained probably a million 
people. Where temples and palaces once stood, 
and splendid avenues ran, are now common rice- 
fields. The change reminds us of the site of 
Matildaville, on the Potomac, planned by Wash- 
ington as a city, once gay with elegant ladies and 
gentlemen, populous with workmen, slaves, and 
rich proprietors, and promising wealth with its 
mills, river-dam, and canal, but now unknown to 
history or gazetteer, and visited only by tourist 
or picnic parties. 

So Kamakura is given over to quiet country life, 
and all that tells of the great Yoritomo is a simple 
obelisk tomb on the top of a knoll. Yet such 



122 JAPAN 

was the splendor of these old days that the Japa- 
nese of to-day fires his imagination as he visits 
the shady groves and hill-passes. Poet and novel- 
ist still delight to locate the scenes of their ro- 
mances amid the pagoda shadows, and spectacular 
splendors, and processions of the Kamakura of 
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 

The artist, also, has his own way of picturing 
the glories of the place, and the prosperity attend- 
ing the rule of Yoritomo. Hokusai, the great 
artist, who died only a few years before one 
of Commodore Perry's ships, the Macedonian, 
grounded off Kamakura, has in one of his albums 
a famous picture of the cock on the drum. 

In European art, the symbol of peace is a white 
dove, an olive branch, a lamb, a flower-grown 
cannon on the neglected battlefield, a radiant 
maiden, or an angel in glistening white robes. In 
the art repertoire of Japan, it is a crowing cock 
standing on a drum raised in air. 

This is what we may call the aesthetic resurrec- 
tion of a custom long dead, and known only in 
history. We are reminded that long ago, in 
Kioto, by the emperor Kotoku (645-654), the 
custom was established, and afterwards copied in 
Kamakura. A wooden drum stood on a post 
in front of the office of the magistrate. Whoever 
was oppressed or maltreated, and wished to pre- 
sent a petition for redress, sounded the drum. 
Then the guard came out to receive the petition 



YOBITOMO AT KAMAKUBA 123 

or relieve the plaint. In times of misrule and 
bad government the drum would sound often, 
scaring away bird and beast. In time of peace 
and good government, when all dwelt in happiness 
and no one was injured, the alarm drum was neg- 
lected, and, no one being near it, the cock could 
mount it as a crowing-place. Hence this figure 
of the cock and drum, so often noted in museums 
where Japanese art is exhibited, is a symbol of 
good government. 

After long years of peace the parchment of the 
drum would decay, and even fall to the ground. 
The motherly old hen would lay her eggs and 
hatch her brood within. Even the doves would 
coo and bill upon the top. In Hokiisai's sketch 
of the neglected drum, the vines encircle it, the 
flowers bloom, and the doves hover over it, the 
sign that all the empire was at peace. Loyal and 
true to the Mikado, Hokiisai makes the leaves of 
the encircling shrubbery and their flowers those 
of the Jciri and the chrysanthemum-tree, — the 
floral emblems of the imperial rule and family. 



CHAPTER XV. . 

THE DEATH OF YOSHITSUNE. 

It is a sad page of Japanese history which tells 
of Yoritomo's treatment of his younger brother. 
We do but imitate the native historians in telling 
of it. 

Alas for human ingratitude and jealousy ! Alas 
for him in whose heart rankles the double-bladed 
arrow of slander ! In the ear of Yoritomo was 
poured the flood of falsehood that washed out 
affection between blood and bone. 

It* was the Japanese version of Eomeo and Ju- 
liet, of Montague and Capulet. Yoshitsune while 
in the south had loved a daughter of a noble of 
Heike blood, and had married her. He had also 
offended a certain military inspector named Kaji- 
wara Kagetoki by never asking his advice. This 
enraged the inspector, who returned to Yoritomo 
and slandered Yoshitsune in every possible way. 
So the jealousy of his brother and the hatred of 
his enemy were as flint and steel to the suspicions 
aroused by his marriage with the Heike lady. 
The fires were soon kindled that were to destroy 
the faithful, loyal, and brave Yoshitsune. 

Yoritomo would not allow him to enter Kama- 



THE DEATH OF YOSHlTSUNt 125 

kura, nor even see or write to him. The fuel of 
the poison-tongued liar fed the fire of jealousy in 
Yoritomo's heart, and henceforth Yoshitsune be- 
came an outlaw, flying from the hatred and ven- 
geance of his unnatural relative, who had deter- 
mined on his death ; for Yoritomo had said : " He 
must be hoed up without mercy. Who will at- 
tack Yoshitsune for me ? " He even erased his 
name from the family rolls and changed his name 
to Yoshiakira. 

Yoshitsune, now finding his life was in danger, 
kept strict watch. One night a band of horsemen 
in armor, each having a torch, surrounded the 
house in Kioto where he was staying with only 
fifty followers. Hastily putting on his corselet, he 
rushed out, and charged into a storm of arrows 
that blunted their heads on his hard armor, or 
stuck in his lacings. Sword in hand, he drove 
the enemy off in disorder, and then finished pur- 
suit with bow and arrow. He then went straight 
to the palace of the emperor, just as he was, and 
reported the cruel attack. His helmet was as full 
of arrows as a porcupine of quills, and he had only 
three shafts left in his quiver. 

To escape the plots of his brother, Yoshitsune 
fled to Yamato and took ship, but the storm drove 
him back, and he landed and hid on land five days. 
Even the priests now sought to kill him for reward. 
Avoiding them, he reached Kioto again, and found 
a hiding-place with a faithful retainer, one Sato, 



126 JAPAN 

who was also in concealment. One day, as Sato 
was playing checkers, a band of Yoritomo's men 
burst upon him, armed with swords, and long iron 
hooks to catch in his clothes and trip him, for 
they were afraid of his tremendous strength. But 
Sato, though armed only with the checker-block 
and pieces, seized one man and threw him in the 
air, grasped another by the neck and tossed him 
at his fellows. Then he hurled the heavy checker- 
block into the crowd, knocking over two or three 
men. As a final discharge, he threw the cups full 
of the three hundred or more black and white 
counters full in their faces. For a moment there 
was a hail-storm, but finally force and weapons 
overcame even his gigantic strength. Entangling 
him in their grappling irons they pulled him 
down, and hacked him to pieces with their swords. 
Then they carried his head to Yoritomo. 

Yoshitsune, finding he could not hide in Kioto, 
parted from Shidzuka, his beloved. This scene of 
his farewell is a favorite one with the artists. He 
and his faithful retainer Benkei fled northwards 
in the disguise of mountain priests. After many 
days, he arrived at the castle of a Fujiwara noble, 
who gave him help and shelter. This old noble 
wished to see Yoshitsune put down Yoritomo 
and become lord of Kamakura. But not long 
after, the old man died, leaving two sons, one of 
whom, by the order of Yoritomo, plotted against 
Yoshitsune's life, and attacked the castle in which 



THE DEATH OF YOSHITSUNJ^ 127 

Yoshitsune with his wife and children and Benkei 
were living. 

How Yoshitsune died is uncertain. The sol- 
diers say that, after putting his wife and children 
to the sword, he killed himself. The soldiers then 
cut off his head, and sent it in a lacquered box 
full of strong wine to Yoritomo, who at the time 
was celebrating a temple feast and therefore 
would not examine it. 

Others say that Benkei made an image of him 
self, stuffed it with rice-straw, and at night 
fastened it securely on the bridge crossing the 
moat to the castle gate. In the morning, the 
enemy shot at it until it was as full of arrows as 
a cushion full of needles, while the spent shafts 
were piled in heaps on the bridge. They feared 
to come closer, as the garrison might be waiting 
ready to sally out. Finally, the towers and build- 
ings inside were set on fire by means of flaming 
arrows, and the castle was forced and found empty. 
The Ainus say that Yoshitsune fled to Yezo, and 
became a great lawgiver and mighty man among 
them ; and these people worship his spirit to this 
day. After living several years in Yezo, it is said 
that he fled across the sea to Tartary, and became 
the renowned Mongol conqueror, Genghis Khan, 
who filled two continents with terror, and founded 
an empire stretching from Corea to Poland, and 
from the Danube to the Yellow Sea. 

Yoshitsune, the brave, the generous, the loving, 



128 JAPAN 

the chivalrous, is the Japanese boy's model ; and 
on the fifth day of the fifth month, when the im- 
ages of Japan's illustrious heroes are set out in 
festal array, none, saving the emperor's, receives 
a higher place and greater honor than that of 
Yoshitsune, the stainless, the brave. Of all the 
bright names on the long scroll of Japanese his- 
tory and legend, no other name thrills the Japa- 
nese boy's heart like the name of Yoshitsun^. 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

THE HOJO RULE. 

With Kamakura a second capital, and the Sho- 
gun a real ruler, the Japanese government was a 
duarchy, and the general outline of the programme 
of Japanese politics was fixed for the next seven 
hundred years. Long before Europeans knew 
anything of Japan, from A. D. 1192 until within 
a few years ago, everything in Japan seemed to be 
double. There were two rulers, two governments, 
two capitals : the Mikado and the Shogun ; the 
throne and the camp ; the huge^ or court nobles, 
and the huM^ or military lords. Practically, from 
1192 to 1868, with but few exceptions in point of 
time, this was the state of things in Dai Nippon. 

No subject, either nobleman or commoner, ever 
attempted to seize the throne and make himself 
emperor, but only to overawe the court, and 
dictate which heir of the imperial blood should 
occupy the 'throne. The Japanese had no foreign 
wars to wage, or invaders to contend with, but they 
quarreled among themselves, and often two rival 
parties fought to obtain possession of the person 
of the Mikado. Whichever one -was victorious, 
and could execute its will in the name of the Son 



130 JAPAN 

of Heaven, was the " loyal " one, while the de^ 
feated party became cho-te-ki, or rebels. 

In long eras of peace, this awful name and word 
was forgotten, but in time of civil war, it sprang 
upon the lips of the people, with all its horrible 
associations of treason, attainder, blood-pits, heads 
taken off with the sword, hara-kiri, or suicide, con- 
fiscation and the waste and desolation that always 
accompany civil war. Few countries have had so 
many intestine wars and so much bloody slaughter, 
both for political and religious ends, as Japan. It 
is in poetry, not in fact, that it is called the " Land 
of Great Peace." The truth of history and the 
rhapsodies of hasty tourists are grievously con- 
tradictory. 

We shall be content with stating this general 
assertion, without entering into the repulsive de- 
tails of the reality. Instead of minutely describ- 
ing the battles, as the native histories do, we shall 
note the progress of the arts and sciences, and how 
the civilization of the Princess Country developed. 
Thus shall we see and know how Japan came to 
be, first, the Lady among the Asian nations ; then 
the Princess Thornrose ; then how »he fell asleep ; 
and, again, how Prince Perry woke Her up with 
a rousing kiss ; and, finally, how she lives and 
dresses in modern fashion, arrayed in the costume 
of both East and West. 

Yoritomo had a fall from his horse in the' year 
1198, and died early in 1199, at the age of fifty- 



THE HO JO BULE 131 

three, after a rule of fifteen years. Yoriiye, his 
son, succeeded. Yoriiye was deposed by Hojo 
Tokimasa, his grandfather, and afterwards assas- 
sinated by hired assassins. Sanetomo, another 
son of Yoritomo, succeeded, but was beheaded in 
revenge for his father's death by Kugio, the son of 
Yoriiye. The direct line of the Minamoto was 
now extinct. 

Hojo Tokimasa, of whom we have spoken, was 
the seventh in descent from a Taira nobleman, who 
was a son of the Mikado Kwammu (782-805). 
Settling at Hojo, a town in Idzu, just south of the 
great Tokaido road, they took their name from 
this place, now a wretched little village. 

Hojo Tokimasa had married his daughter Ma- 
sago to Yoritomo, and by other intermarrages the 
Hojo and Genji clans were closely united. 

Now began that part of Japanese history known 
as " the era of the puppet Shoguns." It was a 
game of Punch and Judy in politics. None of 
the Hojo men ever attempted to fill the office 
of Shogun, but their idea was to set up some one 
sent from Kioto as a mere figure-head, while they 
acted as regents, ventriloquized their opinions, 
pulled the wires, and exerted all real authority. 

Masago, Yoritomo's widow, sent to Kioto and 
delighted the Fujiwara nobles by asking that a 
baby boy of their family name, only two years 
old, be sent to Kamakura and made Shogun. 
After twenty-five years of shadowy rule, he was 



132 JAPAN 

made to resign in favor of his son, six years old, 
who in turn was deposed when twelve years of age 
and sent back to Kioto. 

After this, the Hojo politicians secured princes 
of imperial blood, sons of Mikados, setting them 
up when mere babes, and bowling them down, like 
ten-pins in an alley, when grown to be men, or 
when they began to show signs of manly indepen- 
dence. 

Having the army and the treasury in their 
power, the Hojo were enabled to overawe the 
Mikado and court, terrorize all Japan, and put 
down all attempts to overthrow them. Finally, 
however, in 1333, two heroes arose to draw their 
swords victoriously against the Hojo, whose op- 
pressions of emperor, court and people could no 
longer be borne. 

Nitta Yoshisada was a captain in the army 
of the Hojo. In his veins flowed the blood of 
Minamoto ancestors who had settled at Nitta. 
Leaving the service of Hojo, he appeared before 
the shrine in his native village and called for 
volunteers to range themselves under his white 
banner. With his troops, he attacked Kamakura 
on three sides, stormed the barricades, captured 
and set on fire the city and left it in ashes. Six 
thousand of the Hojo retainers, it is said, com- 
mitted hara-kiri. While thus successful in the 
east, two captains loyal to the Mikado arose in 
the west, and took Kioto. The name of one, 



THE HO JO RULE 133 

illustrious forever in Japanese history as the 
typical loyal Samurai, is Kusunoki ; that of the 
other is associated with a new dynasty of Sho- 
guns, Ashikaga Takauji. 

The Hojo family now passed out of sight, as 
the Taira family had already done before them. 
As the memory of the Taira is preserved in the 
folk-lore and ghost stories of the peasantry and 
fishermen, so the Hojo have their namesakes in 
hated vermin. The country folks of eastern Japan 
have a great annual ceremony for the extermina- 
tion of a destructive worm called the "Hojo bug," 
and thus keep alive the detested memory of the 
second line of rulers at Kamakura. 

Many, also, are the puns and jokes on the word 
hojo., which means both a Buddhist priest or mo- 
nastery and the setting free of live things that 
have been confined, such as animals, birds, fish, or 
insects. This the Buddhists consider meritorious 
work, as making offerings for the dead. In Tokio, 
I used to notice old women sitting on the bridges 
and selling young eels. These were bought by 
passers-by and immediately dropped into the canal 
below, in pious memory of deceased relatives, 
and to shorten their pains in the Buddhist pur- 
gatory. 

Nevertheless, the Hojo rulers deserve the honors 
of history, for some of them were able statesmen. 
They improved justice, agriculture, and indus- 
try, or encouraged literature and religion. They 



134 JAPAN 

established a great library. The resources of the 
country were developed, and the nation grew 
richer. Under their patronage, splendid temples, 
monasteries, pagodas, and images were erected. 
The great bronze image of Dai Butsu (Great 
Buddha), and other grand edifices still standing 
at Kamakura, testify to their enterprise. One of 
them had the pagoda-shaped monument to the 
memory of Kiyomori erected near Hiogo. They 
kept alive the military spirit, and defended the 
country against the Mongol Tartars. They be- 
headed the insolent envoys sent over from China 
to demand that the Japanese declare themselves 
vassals of the great Khan. When, in 1281, the 
armada of Kublai attempted to invade and con- 
quer the country, they were successfully driven off. 
The winds and the waves fought for the Japanese. 
Of the " Jimpu," or Divine Breath, the Japanese 
to this day speak as gratefully and piously as do 
the English of the providential storms that de- 
feated the Spanish Armada. Japan, too, had her 
warriors, like Drake and Frobisher, who bravely 
defied and crippled the remnants of the enemy. 

Indeed, the Japanese sword won new reputa- 
tion from this repulse of the Mongol invaders. 
Instead of the ancient two-edged ken or falchion 
of the " divine ages," or of the clumsy and un- 
tvieldy weapons of the continental Asiatics, the 
lapanese now fought entirely with the long and 
ilender sword made of both iron and steel. The 



THE HO JO RULE 135 

famous swordsmiths of the Middle Ages had 
forged a new weapon made by setting an edge- 
strip of hardest steel into a backing of soft, tough 
iron made of the native magnetic sand, or ore. 
Of this two-handed blade, called a katana, appa- 
rently so light and delicate when laid beside the 
heavy choppers of the Chinese, the Japanese are 
intensely proud. Their feeling was like that of a 
Kentucky rifleman of the olden time contrasting 
his small calibre with the large, smooth bore of 
the old ball-and-buck soldier's musket. From 
this time forth, the names of the Southern Coun- 
try of Brave Warriors, and the Kingdom Ruled 
by a Slender Sword, and the Land of Many 
Blades, applied to Japan, became common in 
poetry and romance. 

The feudal system developed and took on new 
features under the Hojo rulers. They kept a gar- 
rison in Kioto to overawe the court and emperor. 
The term " Samurai " included all the military men 
of the country, and the custom of wearing two 
swords came into vogue, so that "two-sworded 
man " and " Samurai " were equivalent terms. 
The long sword was for use against the enemy, 
and the dirk or short sword was for suicide. 
When wounded in battle and unable to escape, 
the soldier, in order to avoid falling alive into the 
hands of the enemy, stabbed himself in the belly 
with the short sword. This was called hara-hiri, 
but the more elegant term is seppuhu. Soon the 



136 JAPAN 

upper classes claimed it as a privilege to die in 
military style, just as a soldier, Major Andr6, for 
example, prefers to be shot rather than be hanged. 
Instead of being beheaded on the common execu- 
tion-ground like a vulgar criminal, and by the 
ordinary deathsman, the Daimio or Samurai con- 
demned to death was notified when and where he 
might, in presence of the official inspectors, kill 
himself. In later times this was done with great 
ceremony, and a chosen friend made the action 
sure by decapitation. 

The Hojo period (1219-1333) is also famous 
for the great missionary work and triumph of 
Buddhism. The country was visited to its ex- 
tremest boundaries by preaching monks. The 
doctrines of Shinran and Nichiren, who reformed 
and expanded the faith imported from India, 
were propagated all over the country. It was 
during the Hojo era, also, that the existence of 
Japan under the name of "Zipangu" was made 
known to Europe through the writings of Marco 
Polo. 



CHAPTER XYII. 

BENTEN AND THE DRAGONS. 

Almost all Americans who travel in Japan 
arrive first at Yokohama. They make their first 
trip to Kamakura and the beautiful island called 
Enoshima. Associated as these two places and 
the region around are with the Ho jo, we have 
chosen a characteristic legend to illustrate the 
local folk-lore. The subjects here treated of are 
great favorites with Japanese artists. 

Of the four thousand isles of Japan, there is 
not one in the whole archipelago more lovely than 
Enoshima, or the Island of the Bay. It rises out 
of the blue sea like an emerald, and whether 
viewed at the sunset hour, when the snow-white of 
Fuji Yama turns to gold, or with the purple hills 
of Hakone in the background, or with the azure 
headlands of Idzu or Oshima in perspective, it is 
ever beautiful. 

At every high tide, or when the wind blows 
from the sea, Enoshima is really an island sur- 
rounded by water ; but usually a long strip of dry 
sand joins the island to the mainland. One must 
walk carefully, however, lest the waves with their 
tangled foam roll over his shoes. 



138 JAPAN 

The entrance to the rocky island is through a 
Tori-i, or temple portal, and up a steep street 
like a flight of stairs. On each side is a wonder- 
world of color and sheen in the museum of shells 
and sponges, coral and sea-fern. The "pencil 
coral " or spun glass, which looks as though some 
deep-sea silkworms had been spinning a hank of 
threads, or the glass-blowers had made a plume of 
spun glass, is here very plentiful. These, how- 
ever, are only the legs of a once living animal, 
and they are not coral, but sponges. Here, also, 
are flowers made of tiny shells sewn together. 
Hotels and shops line the street, for hundreds of 
pilgrims visit this holy place every year, and each 
likes to buy and take home a souvenir of the 
wonderful island. 

Around in the deep-sea waters of this island 
giant crabs, with bodies as big as a ham, and 
whose arms or outstretched claws are as long as a 
hay-rake, measuring ten or twelve feet, are some- 
times captured. In the deep holes around the 
rocky shore, boys will dive into the depths for 
a few copper cash; and men, after first saying 
their prayers, will plunge many feet to the bottom 
and bring up the awahi, called also the haliotus, 
or sea^ear. There is a long, narrow cave on one 
side of the island, in which they say two white 
dragons once lived, and monster cuttle-fishes have 
their lairs in the cavern holes. 

In the olden time, before the ancestors of the 



BEN TEN AND THE DBAGONS 139 

Mikado descended from heaven, or the pine-tree 
of Takasago flourished, before there was an island 
in the Bay of Sagami, there were great marshes 
and ponds in this region in which five huge 
dragons lived. They were the kind that make 
food of human beings. They especially liked to 
devour children, because these were more tender 
to eat. No one dared approach the dragons' lair, 
and as for killing them, there was no man brave 
enough to attempt it. Things grew worse and 
worse. One poor father, whose tomb is pointed 
out in the temple graveyard of the village near 
by, lost sixteen children, one after another. There 
was not only the dreadful danger of being de- 
voured, but when the dragons were hungry the 
heavens resounded with their growls and roaring. 
They often fought each other, leaving the reeds 
and rushes covered with blood, and the ground 
littered with scales or torn up with their claws, 
like the furrows left by a plough. So dreadful 
was the devastation caused that the village was 
named Koshigoye, which those who tell this story 
say is derived from ko (child), shi (death), and 
koye (passing over), because the inhabitants had 
to emigrate to other regions after their children 
had been killed. 

At last the dragons disappeared. No more 
children were eaten up, and the marshes became 
fertile land, where the rice is planted every June 
and reaped every November. How did it happen? 



140 JAPAN 

In the sixth year of the reign of the Mikado 
Kaikua (157-98 b. c.) a great storm arose at 
night o:ff the coast where the dragons' marshes 
lay. Black clouds covered the sea, and the waves 
mounted to heaven. In the morning, celestial 
music was heard, and through a rift an angelic 
lady accompanied by- two youths of surpassing 
beauty was seen. She was arrayed in long white 
robes and flowing drapery. In her hands she 
held a three - stringed lute, which she played, 
striking the cords with an ivory stick. On her 
head was a crown of gold, set with rarest sea- 
shells and gems. Bracelets of gold clasped her 
wrists, and her slippers were of velvet, crusted 
with fine gold. The storm ceased, the black 
clouds wholly lifted and gradually rolled away. 
Then there appeared, in the ocean, Enoshima, or 
the island of the bay. 

The heavenly lady was sitting not on a cloud, 
but on the top of the island, on a basalt rock, 
flower -strewn and mossy, which overhung the 
waves. When the great round sun rose out of 
the silvery mist in the eastern sea, the face of the 
lady was in the centre of the disk, yet she seemed 
to shine brighter than the heavenly circle itself. 

Then the dragons left their lair, and the people 
were no more troubled, and the celestial lady 
was believed to be mistress and tamer of the 
dragons. Wherefore all the people honored her 
and called her Benten, or the Heavenly Lady. 



BENTEN AND THE DRAGONS 141 

Benten is the queen of the World Under the 
Sea, and she came up out of the Under-world, 
or Riu Gu, to keep her dragons in order, and to 
create the lovely island of Enoshima to comfort 
the people for their children devoured by the dra- 
gons. Without her knowledge, they had become 
unruly and cruel. To make amends for their de- 
vastation she gave to the earth and mankind the 
peerless island. 

Many centuries afterward, Hojo Tokimasa came 
to Enoshima to ask Benten to grant prosperity 
to his descendants. He wrote his prayer in the 
form of a poem, and laid it before her shrine. 
After waiting three weeks for her appearance, 
she rose out of the sea and promised to grant 
what he asked. She warned him, however, that 
if they should be unjust rulers, their power should 
pass away in the seventh generation. This came 
to pass, for there were only seven regents at 
Kamakura after . Tokimasa. 

As she left him to go down into the Riu Gu, 
she showed her real body, which was not that of 
a woman, but partly, at least, that of a dragon. 
Hojo picked up from the ground three of the 
shining black scales which had been shed from 
her body, and arranged them in the form of a 
pyramid for a crest. This trefoil of dragon scales 
became the family mark of the Hojo, and was 
embroidered on their flags, banners, and coats, 
stamped on their swords and weapons, and flashed 



142 JAPAN 

in gold on their helmets. For one hundred and 
fourteen years the dragon scales of the Hojo were 
victorious in Japan, until Nitta, the great captain, 
destroyed them and burned Kamakura. 

Benten is the sea-mother and the nurse of 
Japan, the inventor of the lute, the guide of the 
evening star, and the model to all good mothers 
because she protected children from the dragons 
so long ago. Sailors and fishermen especially 
honor her. Sometimes they see her in the beau- 
tiful moonlight nights of summer, sitting with her 
lute on her knees at the edge of the cliffs project- 
ing over the waves, singing sweet songs to the 
melodious music of the lute. So lovely is the 
melody that the evening star is guided by it up 
to its place in the sky. By it she leads out the 
tides in ebb, and sends them back in flood, using 
also the two jewels of the flowing tides, which the 
king of the. World Under the Sea gave to the 
young Mikado Ojin. 

While Benten is queen of the Under-world, she 
is on earth a model mother and a diligent house- 
keeper. She has fifteen sons, all of whom she 
educated and trained to useful trades or callings. 
The first is a government officer, as his robe of 
office shows. The second is a learned scholar, 
who carries a writing-box, with ink-stick, ink- 
stone, brush-pen, and rolls of paper for writing. 
The third is a bronze-caster. The fourth is a 
money-changer, with his lever scales for weighing 



BENTEN AND THE DRAGONS 143 

coins. The fifth, a farmer, carries a bundle of 
sheaves. The sixth, a merchant, holds a grain 
measure in his hand. The seventh, a cake-maker, 
flourishes a flour-scoop. The eighth, a tailor, lugs 
a bundle of coats in his hand. The ninth, a silk- 
rearer, bears a tray of mulberry leaves for the 
silkworms to feed on. The tenth is a sake- 
brewer, with keg and dippers. The eleventh is 
a priest, with the three-pronged " diamond club," 
the emblem of his oflice, called a sanho. The 
twelfth is the doctor, with his inro^ or pill-box. 
The thirteenth is the breeder of animals, with his 
horse and humped ox. The fourteenth is a man- 
ager of travel by land and water, who lets out 
boats or carts on hire. The fifteenth, or pet son, 
has no business. He is the " lion's cub," as the 
apple of the indulgent parent's eye is called. 

This is the reason why Benten is the type and 
example to all good mothers, and the ideal of 
fertility and harmony. There are many golden 
images of her in which she sits on a rock over- 
looking the blue sea. In the crested waves, and 
partly wound round and over the rocks, is a dragon 
sporting about, and holding in his claws the crys- 
tal jewel of the flowing tide. He is bringing it 
to his mistress. Benten sits, many-armed and 
many-handed, holding in her left palm the ebb- 
tide jewel. In the other hands are a sceptre, bow 
and arrow, thunder and lightning, while over her 
head is an aureole of dazzling rainbow colors. Her 



144 JAPAN 

robes blaze witb gold. How beautiful, queenly, 
and motherly she looks, this tamer of the dragons 
and mistress of the sea ! 

Benten has a dragon's nature, after all, and the 
image tells the story. Out of her head there 
comes coiling up a great human-headed serpent. 
Perhaps she will turn into a dragon and crawl 
away into the sea, as she did when Hojo watched 
her and picked up three scales for a crest. All 
that belongs to water is changeable. Liquid, solid, 
and gas, water, ice, snow, frost, vapor, hail, clouds, 
are all forms of the one unstable element, water. 
" Even fishes and birds turn into each other," say 
the Chinese sages, whom the Japanese people be- 
lieve. Which is Benten and which the dragon, 
and whether a snake or a beautiful lady, they 
can scarcely tell. Her temples are nearly always 
found on islands. Her worshipers never like to 
kill a snake^ for these reptiles are sacred to her. 
As the sea, with its commerce yielding wealth, its 
fish making food, and its pearls and gems express- 
ing beauty, attracts the sailor, fisherman, and 
pearl merchant, so Benten, the dragon-goddess, ' 
draws to herself, as mistress of the sea, ten thou- 
sand worshipers who pray to her for beauty, 
power, and wealth. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE ASHIKAGA SHOGUNS. 

After Nitta Yoshisada and Ashikaga Takauji 
had destroyed Kamakura and restored the supreme 
authority of the Mikado, Japan had again one 
ruler, court, and capital in Kioto. For nearly 
three years, from 1333 to 1336, monarchy was 
the rule. 

Unfortunately the spoils system had become so 
fixed in practice that the victors soon quarreled 
over the division of office and rewards. They 
fought among themselves, and even set up rival 
Mikados, thus dividing the imperial family. Then 
a civil war, lasting fifty-six years, broke out. 
Kusunoki committed hara-kiri ; Nitta died in an 
ambuscade near Fukui in Echizen. Ashikaga 
Takauji was in 1338 appointed Shogun, and re- 
built Kamakura. Again duarchy became the po- 
litical system. 

In this war of the northern and southern dynas- 
ties, the imperial nominee of the Ashikagas was 
Hogen, and he and his successors formed the 
northern line ; but the southern dynasty, headed 
by Go-Daigo, had possession of the three sacred 
regalia, — mirror, ball, and sword. As in so many 



146 JAPAN 

otlier matters analogous to European history, this 
era of rival Mikados, or Sons of Heaven, was 
nearly contemporaneous with that of the rival 
Popes or Vicars of God at Avignon and Rome. 

Kioto, during most of this wretched civil war, 
lay in ashes, and large portions of the empire 
were given up to anarchy. Finally, in 1392, at 
the request of Ashikaga, the southern emperor 
came to Kioto, yielded up the three sacred em- 
blems, and, after solemn religious ceremonies in 
a temple, the feud was healed. 

The Ashikaga rule at Kamakura lasted from 
1336 to 1574, and the number of Shoguns was 
fifteen. The whole period was one of unrest and 
local wars, in the form of clan fights and feuds of 
the daimios. Feudalism was greatly developed 
when the Ashikaga rulers made the military gov- 
ernorships hereditary. The daimios, or territorial 
nobles, often* preyed upon each other, and the 
powers at Kamakura were not always able to 
restrain their violence. 

This was also the age of castle-building and 
the development of the arts and trades, of war 
and of splendid spectacles and shows, of hawking 
and fajconry, and of the power of the priesthood 
and the monasteries. Most of the great daimios 
of later fame laid the foundations of their power 
during this era. Novelists, street story-tellers, and 
dramatists usually locate the time and plot of their 
works in the Ashikaga period. Any Judas can 



THE ASHIKAGA SHOGUNS 147 

be buried in this potter's field, and the origin of 
anything unusually bad or disgraceful is usually 
ascribed to " the times of the Ashikaga." 

In our own day, especially, the memory of the 
Ashikaga has been execrated for their bad treat- 
ment of the emperors. While Columbus was 
crossing the Atlantic, expecting to find Zipangu 
with its gold-roofed palaces, the estate of the 
emperors in Kioto was at its worst. Poor and 
wretched, dependent upon the bounty of the 
Kamakura rulers, while Kioto was the scene of 
frequent battles and conflagrations, their lot was 
pitiful. I have seen Japanese students weep as 
they read the story of their wrongs. 

Still further did Yoshimitsii, the third of the 
Ashikaga line, and others after him, insult the 
national dignity. They sent embassies to China, 
and consented to receive from the Ming emperor 
the title of King of Japan. They also paid the 
Chinese emperor a tribute of a thousand ounces 
of gold. In this respect, they acted like the vassal 
nations subject or tributary to China, so that, to 
the Chinese, Japan seemed no longer an indepen- 
dent country. 

Although this is the way the matter looks to 
some Chinese historians, it must not be forgot- 
ten that the Japanese, while not excusing the 
Ashikaga, call this money an indemnity for in- 
juries done by Japanese pirates. Their feeling 
has always been like that of the Americans, — = 



148 JAPAN 

" Millions for defence, but not one cent for 
tribute." 

Many of tlie coast people of KiusMu, having 
no one to curb them, turned pirates. One daimio 
family encouraged piracy, and grew rich by pluck- 
ing the Coreans and Chinese. Ever adventurous 
and brave, the Japanese sailors swarmed along the 
coast of Asia from Tartary to Siam. Not content 
with robbing ships, they often landed, and sacked 
and burned villages, towns, and even cities. These 
" sea Japanese " caused such fear and trouble that, 
to this day, along the coast of southeastern China, 
the mothers frighten unruly children by the cry, 
" The Japanese are coming." The people in more 
than one country, during this era, used to pray 
the gods in their temples to deliver them from 
the ravages of the Japanese, just as the Euro- 
peans prayed to be delivered from the fury of the 
Northmen. • 

When, therefore, the Chinese envoys came to 
Kamakura to complain of these robbers, it is said 
that Ashikaga paid the gold as indemnity, and not 
as tribute. 

Nevertheless, one can easily understand how 
the name of the Ashikaga is as detested in Japan 
as that of Benedict Arnold is in America. In the 
excitement of 1868, the rough fellows in Kioto, 
called ronin, went into certain temples where 
carved wooden statues of the Shoguns of this fam- 
ily stood in honor. They first cut off the heads 



THE ASHIKAGA SHOGUNS 149 

of the images, and then stuck them up on the 
pillory in the common execution-ground, where 
outlaws were beheaded, as if they were real heads 
of common criminals. They meant by this that 
they intended to serve all oppressors of the Mi' 
kado in the same manner. 

In the midst of the worst national confusion 
and disorder ever known in Japan, the first Eu- 
ropeans arrived in that country. A Portuguese 
named Mindez Pinto, and his two companions, 
had taken passage in a Chinese pirate-junk. 
Driven away from China by a storm, they reached 
Tanegashima. Kindly treated by the people of 
the island, one of the Portuguese made the gov- 
ernor a present of his matchlock, and showed him 
how to fire it. When he brought down a duck 
flying beyond arrow-range, the people, who had 
never seen such a thing, were amazed. Country 
people still call a pistol " Tanegashima," just as 
our word " bayonet " is named after the place, Ba- 
yonne, in France, where it was first manufactured. 
The Japanese are quick to imitate anything they 
want, and Pinto says that, during the six months 
they stayed on the island, the skillful armorers 
there made six hundred guns. In 1556, when he 
revisited the country, firearms were quite common 
in many towns. 

Mendez, on his return to Europe, wrote a book 
which was long considered a story of the same 
character as " Robinson Crusoe." He made so 



150 JAPAN 

many wonderful statements that seemed lying ex- 
aggerations that he was dubbed, by a pun on his 
name, the " Mendacious." Thus unwittingly he 
helped to introduce a word into modern speech, 
just as Mr. Boycott of Ireland has done. Never- 
theless there was much truth in the narrative of 
Mendez Pinto's adventures, and firearms were used 
in most battles in Japan from this time forward. 

After Mendez Pinto, who, instead of Columbus, 
was the first known European to reach Zipangu, 
came Portuguese merchants and missionaries. 
Francis Xavier, a great and good man, afterwards 
canonized as a saint, after visiting Satsuma and 
other provinces went to Kioto. He probably ex- 
pected to see the gold-roofed palace of the Mikado 
about which Marco Polo had written. Instead of 
a brilliant city, he found a place little better than 
a camp, and soon after left the country and died 
on the coaSt of China. Others followed him from 
Portugal, and soon the friars, in shovel-hats and 
with crucifixes in their hands, were preaching 
all over the country. Their astonishing success 
roused the jealousy and wrath of the Buddhist 
priests, for in fifty years they gained probably two 
hundred thousand converts. Some of these were 
daimios, who sent embassies to the Pope. One 
Japanese ship crossed the Pacific Ocean to Mexico, 
and thence the envoys reached Spain and Italy. 
Japanese travelers in our day have discovered their 
ancestors' portraits and letters among the palaces 



THE ASHIKAGA SHOGUNS ' 151 

of Italian nobles in the city of Rome. Two mag- 
nificent suits of armor now in the museum at 
Madrid, which these young men presented to 
Philip II., king of Spain, are probably the oldest, 
as they are among the finest, specimens of Japan- 
ese art and workmanship ever brought to Europe. 

Nearly every year, relics of the Japanese in 
Europe, and of the native Christians and Jesuit 
missionaries in Japan, come to light. Mr. Ernest 
Satow has told the story of the books printed at 
the Jesuit mission press in Japan. In this year, 
1892, one of the Mikado's envoys in Europe has 
discovered in a church in Venice a large stone 
tablet commemorating the visit, in 1585, of the 
same young men who presented the armor in 
Madrid. 

Like all the other Shoguns, the Ashikaga 
claimed descent from the Minamoto, their ances- 
tors having settled in the eleventh century at Ashi- 
kaga, a village in the province of Shimotsuke, now 
containing about two thousand people. The clan 
and dynasty were destined to be overthrown by 
Nobunaga, a man of Taira blood. 

When Yoritomo and the Genji were hunting 
out the Heike to put them to death, the widow of 
one Sukemori fled with her son into Omi, hiding 
in the village of Tsuda, where the head man of the 
village married her. One day a Shinto priest 
lodging at the house saw this bright boy, the 
great-grandson of Kiyomori, and asked that he 



152 • JAPAN 

might have him to educate for the priesthood. 
Mother and step-father agreed. He lived at Ota, 
in Echizen, near the city of Fukui. When he 
married, as Shinto priests do, he became the com- 
mon ancestor of two great warriors of the sixteenth 
century. These were Shibata, whose tomb and 
relics I visited when living in Echizen, and No- 
bunaga, the persecutor of the Buddhists. 

Nobunaga was trained to arms from 1542 to 
1549 by his father, who was a soldier bent on 
acquiring lands and castles, like most of the barons 
or daimios of the time. After his father's death, 
he made himself master of six provinces in cen- 
tral Japan. Seizing Kioto, he built the splendid 
castle of Nijo, now used as the city hall. He took 
the side of Ashikaga Yoshiaki and had him made 
Shogun, but after six years quarreled with him, 
and in 1573 deposed him. This act put an end 
to the AsTbikaga dynasty, after their rule of two 
hundred and thirty-eight years. 

While the political genius of this line of rulers 
was not great, as the patrons of art the Ashikaga 
are remembered with gratitude. Two of the most 
superb edifices in Kioto are the Golden and the 
Silver Pavilions, which were built by them. 
Though much despoiled, they are still visited 
greatly by tourists. Gold and silver were lavishly 
used in the woodwork, and the most skillful artists 
were employed to decorate the walls and ceilings. 
By their patronage of literature and art, a new 



THE ASHIKAGA SHOGUNS 153 

era of painting, poetry, and original prose com- 
position was ushered in during the fifteenth cen- 
tury. Indeed, it may be said that the founders 
of the great national art flourished in this period. 
Meisho (1351-1427), a priest in Kioto, painted 
the death of Shaka (Buddha) for the first time 
in Japan. It still exists in a temple, measures 
twenty-six by thirty-nine feet, and has been copied 
hundreds of times. Other famous painters whose 
works now command great prices were Josetsu, 
Shiubun, the two Kanos, and Sesshiu. The in- 
fluence of China and Persia on the native art is 
very noticeable, but from this time forth the art 
of Japan has more power and originality. Land- 
scape, flowers, birds, and subjects drawn from 
history and mythology are boldly treated. With- 
out oil, or our fashion of framing in gilt wood, 
Japanese paintings on panels, or wall-hangings 
called 'kakemono^ increase in value and interest 
the more they are studied. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THEEE FAMOUS MEN. 

Long before the fall of the Ashikaga, Kama- 
kura, having been repeatedly burned and sacked, 
bad ceased to be a place of any importance. Kioto 
was the only seat of general government. The 
office of Shogun now fell into abeyance. With 
his two generals, Hideyoshi in the south and 
lyeyasii in the east, Nobunaga soon had most of 
Japan under his control. His aim was to make 
the Mikado supreme, and to restore the imperial 
dignity. He never took the title or office of 
Shogun, which only men of Minamoto blood 
claimed ; but as Nai Dai Jin, or Inner Great 
Minister, he ruled the empire in the Mikado's 
name. 

Nobunaga handled the Buddhists roughly, for 
he considered that they were sometimes traitorous 
and warlike, and he was himself at heart a fana- 
tical Shintoist. He patronized the Jesuit priests 
and granted them many favors. In the year 
1582, when but forty-nine years old, in the height 
of his power, he was assassinated in Kioto by one 
of his traitorous captains named Akechi. His 
tomb of granite stands in the keep, or highest 



THREE FAMOUS MEN 155 

point, of his old castle of Adzuclii-Yama, overlook- 
ing Lake Biwa. 

After Nobunaga, who was more of a soldiei 
than a statesman, had " changed his world," Hi- 
d^yoshi, who was as able in government as in 
battle, took his place. Hideyoshi is usually called 
Taiko. He rose to the highest rank a subject 
could hold, though he had once been only a stable- 
boy. He became great through sheer merit. In 
his lifetime he had as many names as there are in 
a chapter of Chronicles. His mother called him 
"Bright Sun," others "Small Boy" and "Monkey 
Pine." Enlisting as a soldier, Nobunaga called 
him " The Man under a Tree." When a comman- 
der the people nicknamed him " Cotton," because 
he was good for as many uses as cotton. When he 
became a general he united the names of two of 
his lieutenants and called himself Ha-shiba. He 
made a banner out of a gourd, and every time he 
gained a victory he added a new gourd, until 
there were as many gourds as there are ribs to an 
umbrella. As the gourd-banner was never seen 
in retreat, but always in victory, the soldiers loved 
to follow it. 

As soon as Hideyoshi heard of the death of 
Nobunaga, he hurried to Kioto, and slew Akechi, 
the assassin, and spoiled his ambitions. The pro- 
verb, " Akechi ruled three days," is still applied 
to those clothed with brief authority who soon 
fall. 



156 JAPAN 

After a campaign in Echizen, in which Shi- 
bata was beaten and forced to commit hara-kiri, 
and his castle at Fukui was burned, Hideyoshi 
returned to Kioto and began to develop the re- 
sources of the empire. He rebuilt the city mag- 
nificently, improved Fushimi, and made Nagasaki 
an imperial port. 

Peace now smiled upon the country and its 
wealth increased, so that Hideyoshi became very 
popular. He obtained from the Mikado the pa- 
tent of a family name, Toyotomi. Not being able 
probably to tell who his grandfather, and possibly 
even his father, was, he gave out that his mother 
before his birth had dreamed that the sun had 
entered her body, and that he was conceived of 
this luminary. Such a dream was very common 
with Corean and Japanese mothers, and one often 
reads of such incidents in Oriental history. On 
account of this alleged dream he had taken the 
name of Hideyoshi, which is composed of Hi 
(sun), de (out of, or from), and yoshi (good), 
meaning " well conceived of the sun," or " well 
born of the sun." 

Hideyoshi could not be Shogun, any more than 
Nobunaga, but in 1586 he obtained the office of 
Kuambaku, or Premier, which only nobles of Fu- 
jiwara blood had ever held. When, therefore, 
these proud high-capped and blue-blooded huge 
saw the little wizen-faced man wearing the official 
head-dress and silken robes in an office known 



THBEE FAMOUS MEN 157 

only to their Heaven-descended ancestors, some 
of them, behind his back, called him the " Saru 
kuan ja," or the " Crowned Monkey." In 1591 
he resigned this office in favor of his son, and be- 
came Taiko (retired). Hence he is usually styled 
Taiko Sama. 

Probably no one subject of the emperor ever 
had so much power as Hideyoshi. He used it in 
the name of the Mikado, but in reality he devel- 
oped still further feudalism, which is always op- 
posed to monarchy as well as to democracy. In 
theory, all the land of Japan belongs to the empe- 
ror. Feudalism divides up the land and gives it 
to hundreds of vassals, who become obedient to 
the chief military lord, while the people on the 
land become tenants, and often little better than 
slaves. Yoritomo first swallowed up the civil in 
the military power by putting his own relations 
and vassals over the various provinces. The Ashi- 
kaga carried the system further by making the 
military governorships hereditary, and thus the 
lands governed were practically the property of 
the soldier-lords who governed them. Hideyoshi 
boldly took the step of parceling out the whole 
empire, and giving lands to daimios, without ever 
asking the Mikado or consulting with the court. 

Although the country was now at peace, yet 
war had been the rule for generations, and there 
were hundreds of thousands of soldiers who lived 
by arms. How could they be employed ? Taiko 
patronized art, and invented the cha no yu^ or 



158 JAPAN 

tea-ceremonies, by which they were amused for a 
time, but they were not easily weaned from war. 
Further, some of the leading generals were Chris- 
tians, while their rivals were Buddhists. With 
native and foreign priests hostile and jealous, and 
the foreigners even suspected of designs against 
Japan, how could the rivals be kept from quarrel- 
ing? How could peace and a stable government 
be maintained? 

These were questions which Hideyoshi began 
to consider just when his own ambition made him 
think of conquering Corea and even China. Was 
not Corea properly subject to Japan, on account 
of the former conquest of Jingu Kogo? The 
Coreans had not sent any tribute since early in 
the century, and this Hideyoshi used as a pretext 
of invasion. So, in spite of embassies and nego- 
tiations, two veteran armies were ordered to ad- 
vance on the Corean capital, and a war lasting 
from 1592 to 1597 began. At first the Japanese 
were victorious. They captured the Corean capi- 
tal and many stone- walled castles, and occupied 
nearly the whole of the eight provinces. When, 
however, the Chinese allies entered Corea with 
vast armies, the Japanese were forced to retreat. 
Bloody battles and long sieges, and the feeding of 
two great armies, left Corea in a state of desola- 
tion, from which she has hardly yet recovered. 
Japan probably lost a hundred thousand men in 
battle and disease by this war. The Japanese 
name is still execrated in Corea. 



THREE FAMOUS MEN ' 159 

In 1598 Taiko Sama died, and Corea was 
evacuated. The armies brought back immense 
treasures and spoils from the monasteries and 
houses of the nobles. Thousands of Corean pris- 
oners who remained in Japan, or skilled work- 
men imported, introduced new arts and trades. 
The celebrated Satsuma potters were Coreans. 
In Kioto, beside many other reminders and relics, 
the great ear-tomb, built in the go-riii or five- 
tiered form on the top of a mound, covers several 
thousand ears severed from Corean corpses as 
ghastly tokens of Japanese victory. 

The age of Taiko was one of great activity in 
war, industry, art, literature, and navigation. It 
deserves a history by itself. In many seas and 
countries of the East, Japanese voyaged or made 
settlements, and the traders, pirates, and settlers 
carried afar the fame of the great Taiko. In 
domestic politics, by following up the work of 
Nobunaga, overcoming the feudal chieftains, hum- 
bling Satsuma, Choshiu, and the other great clans, 
Taiko prepared the way for lyeyasu, and made 
his work easy. Of this great man, Taiko's suc- 
cessor, we shall now speak. 

In the twelfth century, one of the younger sons 
of Minamoto Yoshiiye took the name of Toku- 
gawa, and the family settled in the province of 
Kodzuke. In the fourteenth century, driven out 
in the wars of the Ashikaga, they took refuge at 
the village of Matsudaira, in Mikawa. 



160 JAPAN 

One of the young sons adopted by the mayor 
of the village took this name, Matsudaira, which 
was formally assumed by his descendants, and 
has been so famous for the last three hundred 
years. It is said that the father of lyeyasu, in 
1529, when returning from a victorious expedition 
in Mikawa was entertained by his vassal Honda 
in his castle at Ina. During the feast, Honda 
presented his guest with some cakes served on a 
round wooden tray. The refreshments had been 
neatly laid on three asarum or wild-ginger leaves. 
Seeing these three leaves in a circle the successful 
warrior cried out, " I have received these leaves 
while returning victorious, therefore I shall adopt 
them as my crest." 

This trefoil badge of three asarum or Japanese 
" hollyhock " leaves laid inside of a ring is seen 
on thousands of art-objects in gold, silver, lacquer, 
silk, or wood. For over two hundred years, on 
flags, banners, temples, baggage, and dresses, as 
the Tokugawa crest, it overshadowed even the im- 
perial chrysanthemum. 

lyeyasu was born in 1542, and served under 
both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. He built a splen- 
did castle at the city now called Shidziioka. He 
overcame the "second Hojo " family, who had a 
castle at Odawara. Since Kamakura had become 
a village of little importance, lyeyasu chose another 
place, called Yedo ("Bay-d^or "), as the site of 
his future city. 



THBEE FAMOUS MEN 161 

lyeyasii made peace with Corea and sent home 
many of the Corean prisoners. He then began 
to watch the movements of the warlike generals 
and southern daimios who had returned. They 
were flushed with victory, and wanted to have 
their own way. Many of them leagued them- 
selves together as the retainers of Hideyori, the 
son of Taiko. War soon broke out, and the 
army of the league and the eastern army of 
lyeyasii met in battle at Sekigahara, or The 
Field of the Barrier, in October, 1600. lyeyasii 
achieved a complete and decisive victory. Being 
now virtually ruler of all Japan, and the man for 
the work at hand, the Mikado and court, early 
in 1603, made him Sei-i Tai Shogun. Hencefor- 
ward Yedo was to take the place of Kamakura. 

lyeyasii laid out the new city in grand outline, 
and gradually built it in splendid style. He also 
reconstructed the feudal map of Japan, dividing 
the country into nearly three hundred fiefs or 
principalities. He put his most faithful retainers 
near Yedo and Kioto, and so arranged friends, 
foes, and rivals, that none of his enemies could 
successfully combine against him, or seize Kioto 
or the Mikado. He gave audience to the Dutch 
and English merchants, encouraged foreign trade, 
revived the study of literature, collected books 
and manuscripts, developed the national resources, 
and cultivated the arts of peace. 

He had but one campaign to fight, and that 



162 JAPAN 

was in 1615, when the castle of Osaka was be- 
sieged, and the malcontents who had gathered 
round Hideyori were scattered. lyeyasii died in 
1616. His bones, after resting for a year at 
Kuno Zan, were borne in grand procession to 
Nikko, the most beautiful place in Japan. 

The successors of lyeyasii, the Shoguns of the 
Tokugawa dynasty, carried out the founder's ideas, 
and for two hundred and fifty years, with the ex- 
ception of the successful campaign at Shimabara 
in 1637, against the Christians who had risen in 
rebellion, the land had perfect peace. 

In this long interval of peace, the feudal system 
was perfected. The kuge, or court nobles, in 
Kioto, sprung from gods and Mikados, and in- 
tensely proud of their blue blood and immemorial 
lineage, lived quietly in the enjoyment of flowers, 
poetry, and etiquette. In one sense, Kioto was 
the sacred city ; the kuge formed a college of car- 
dinals ; and the Mikado was an infallible Pope. 
Between 1612 and 1866, fourteen occupants of 
the throne, two empresses and twelve emperors, 
reigned, but none was of any personal importance, 
or, so far as known, influenced history. 

Of the daimios, or nobles who possessed land 
and ruled their provinces or dominions as heads 
of clans, eighteen were Koku-shiu (rulers of prov- 
inces) whose capitals were large cities, and whose 
revenues amounted to millions of dollars. Most 
of these daimios of the first rank traced their de- 



THREE FAMOUS MEN 163 

scent to the military governors appointed by Yo- 
ritomo. Those of Kaga, Satsuma, Sendai, Echi- 
zen, Higo, Choshiu, and Hizen were among the 
best known, and some were relatives of lyeyasii. 
This was the case with the lord of Echizen, in 
whose dominions, at the capital city of Fukui, the 
writer spent the year 1871. Two daimios, Satake 
and Nambu, claimed to be descendants of Ojin, the 
god of war. 

After the eighteen great daimios who ruled 
provinces, came those called Kamon, also eighteen 
in number. These were relatives of the Toku- 
gawa family, and took the name Matsudaira. The 
Tozama, or outside lords, that is, not relatives of 
the Tokugawa, numbered nearly one hundred. Of 
the Fudai, or successive families, who were de- 
scendants of the vassals of lyeyasu, there were 
four clans or families distinguished by the term 
Kin-shin, or relatives, from whom the regent was 
chosen when the Shogun was a minor. Eighteen 
other clans were called the Old Fudai, and held 
in special honor, because their ancestors served 
lyeyasu before he was the Shogun of all Japan. 
The head of the Fudai daimios was li Kamon no 
Kami, lord of Hikone, on Lake Biwa, and in a 
sense the guardian of Kioto. 

In addition to all these powerful vassals, the 
Shogun had an army of eighty thousand soldiers, 
called hata-moto, or flag-supporters, at his beck 
and call. lydyasii prohibited the western daimios 



164 JAPAN 

from entering Kioto, and made many other severe 
restrictions. lyemitsii, the third Shogun of the 
Tokugawa line, began the custom of having all 
the daimios spend half the year, or every other 
year, in Yedo, leaving their wives and children as 
hostages when in their own domains. 

Gradually, the Yedo government grew more 
oppressive, and often purposely kept certain dai- 
mios poor by enforced gifts or expensive public 
works. The processions of these feudal lords to 
and from, and while in Yedo, were usually very 
imposing. In the case of the Koku-shiu, they 
numbered a thousand men or more, — the display 
of horses, furniture, equipage, decorative spears, 
umbrellas, banners, and all sorts of feudal insig- 
nia, making a gay parade. These constant move- 
ments made the high roads very lively, and gave 
to the people of the villages through which they 
passed a spectacular treat. They also furnished 
the hotels with business, and kept Yedo and the 
large cities full of gay shops. When a train 
passed by, all horsemen must dismount, the com- 
mon people kneel down, and every one remove his 
head-covering. To refuse to obey these rules was 
an insult to the daimio, and might result to the 
offender in a beating or death. When foreigners 
came to live in Japan, some of them lost their 
lives from not knowing these customs. 

Government existed mainly for the benefit of 
the Samurai ; and the other classes, especially the 



THREE FAMOUS MEN 165 

traders, had few rights which the sword-wearers 
were bound to respect, while the beggars and Eta 
or hi-7iin^ two of the very lowest of the many- 
grades of humanity in feudal Japan, had no rights 
whatever. 

In passing over the details of history during 
the Tokugawa period from 1603 to 1868, except 
to say that fifteen Shoguns ruled, seven of the 
direct line of lyeyasii, seven of the house of Kii, 
and one of the house of Mito, we shall glance at 
the life of the people as reflected in their art- 
symbols, folk-lore, and household superstitions, 
and then note the forces which shattered the 
system of lyeyasii and produced New Japan. 



12: 



CHAPTER XX. 

IDEAS AND SYMBOLS. 

When we take a walk in Japan, we notice tliat 
the landscape and nearly everything in it are dif- 
ferent from what we should see at home in Amer- 
ica or Europe. In our American Northern States 
the landscape has been formed by the glacier. In 
Japan, the volcano and earthquake have been the 
chief shaping forces. Many of the trees and 
flowers are similar to ours, and Dr. Asa Gray has 
shown that there is a wonderful likeness between 
the Japanese and American flora. Yet, on the 
other hand, the camphor, camellia, and cryptomeria 
trees, the g|toves of bamboo, and the many varieties 
of lilies, azaleas, and asters show great differences, 
or remind us that we have borrowed many things 
in our gardens from the land of camellias. We 
should notice that both tropical and arctic plants 
abound, as though the Japanese archipelago were 
a meeting-place of many currents from many 
climes. 

But what would remind us more than anything 
else that we were in a strange country would be 
the bright-red pagodas peeping out among the 
evergreen trees, and the wayside shrines of idols 



IDEAS AND SYMBOLS 167 

at the cross-roads and under the brows of the hills. 
The curious gateways of stone or wood, called the 
tori-i, or " bird-rests," leading to little temples 
hidden away in the shrubbery, would often strike 
the eye. Frequently we should see the pathway 
shadowed by a score or more of these curious 
wicket-like structures. 

If we went into a cemetery, beautiful though it 
might be with trees and shrubs, we should notice 
at once a different sort of tombs. The absence 
of the symbols of hope and of the resurrection 
would be at once noticeable. In place of these, 
we should find square columns well incised with 
Chinese characters. Near new graves, or jars of 
fresh ashes, we should find flat boards covered with 
Sanscrit symbols. Though so far away from India, 
this Sanscrit writing, and the ringed and banded 
masses of stone that look like miniature pagodas, 
are very common. Imposing five-tiered monuments 
rise over the dust or ashes of the rich or famous. 
These are made of a cube, a sphere, a pyramid, 
a crescent and a flame-shaped stone. The in- 
scriptions, could we read them, would be found in 
some respects very different from ours, though 
in others much the same. Fresh flowers set 
before the tombs would prove that many hearts 
still remembered the dead. 

Walking along the streets of town or city, we 
should see no gilded weathercocks, domes, or 
spires with flashing cross. The house corners 



168 JAPAN 

and ends of public buildings, on which men like 
to put ornaments that mean something, would 
show figures very different from ours. Yet all 
would be interesting and full of meaning. It 
would show us that their world of ideas, their 
history of the past, their education and discipline 
of mind, their material for dreams and fairy tales, 
and poetry and art, grew up where ours did not. 
To travel in Japan is, in one sense, like visiting 
the moon, supposing, as the Japanese fairy tales 
do, that the moon is inhabited. 

In Christendom, law, society, customs, art, and 
even language are much alike. But in the Chi- 
nese world, and in Buddhadom, the thoughts and 
the manner of expressing thoughts in books, 
pictures, statuary, architecture, all kinds of art, 
and even in the garden and the burying-ground, 
are very different. 

The Japanese do not like things square, or 
balanced, or symmetrical, either in decoration or 
in landscape. A Japanese gardener, in preparing 
a bit of ground in order to make a park or gar- 
den, does not follow our stiff and regular methods. 
In subduing wild nature into more perfect beauty 
he does not destroy ; he only trains and educates. 
Whether his garden be in a little box a foot 
square, or in a park of many acres, he will have 
a landscape like that which nature has made. 
There must be hills, valleys, a waterfall, a stream- 
let, a lake, with trees, bushes, shrubs, grass, and 



IDEAS AND SYMBOLS 169 

flowers. This is nature's part. Then there must 
be paths, stepping-stones, lanterns, seats, hedges, 
bridges, gateways, a well, guide aud notice boards, 
a little cottage or pavilion, a moon-viewing cham- 
ber, or tower of observation ; with perhaps a pail 
of cakes for feeding the goldfish, and a pebbled 
strand or jetty to stand on. This is man's part. 

All this, when complete, will be a perfect mar- 
riage of nature and art, charming to the eye and 
harmonious with the sense of beauty. Still further, 
it will awaken thought, and be as enjoyable as 
music or poetry. It will please the mind as well 
as the eye. To the cultivated person, each step- 
ping stone, path, hillock, ornament in bronze, wood, 
or stone, will have a meaning, and will call up to 
the imagination some pleasant association as surely 
as the key-note suggests a tune, or our words, 
"Mid pleasures and palaces," call to mind the 
tender sentiment and music of " Home, Sweet 
Home," or an orange blossom tells of a bride and 
wedding, or a cradle compels one to think of a 
baby. 

In the cemetery each letter, shape, and figure 
has a meaning. Near newly-made graves, or the 
hollow tombs which contain the fresh ashes from 
the cremation house, staves of wood stand upright. 
On these are inscribed the Sanscrit hongo or 
priest's letters. The particular letter oftenest 
used is a symbol of the human frame, summing up 
in its meaning head, arms, breast, body, and legs. 



170 . JAPAN 

Near the temple will usually be seen a pagoda, 
which is a many-storied, tall column of hand- 
somely carved wood, painted vermilion. The 
number of stories, five, seven, nine, or eleven, 
must be an odd one. Originally it was an act of 
merit to place such structures over the graves of 
departed friends. The first were built in India, 
usually over the relic of some Buddhist saint. In 
China the pagoda is called by a name meaning 
" the white bone tower," but in Japanese the 
word to means only a column. The roofs and 
edges of the stories or platforms are curved up- 
wards, like the roofs of temples and tori-i. Lit- 
tle brass wind-bells, which clink and rattle in 
every breeze, are hung on the corners of many 
houses and high places, and make an odd kind of 
music whenever a breath of air is stirring. One 
of Bakin's prettiest stories is called " The Golden 
Wind-Bell- of Kamakura." 

Certain curious fossils found in limestone, when 
cut open, look like pagodas, and the common folks 
believe these are caused by the pagoda shadows 
falling on the earth. The tops of these wooden 
towers, which in Japan are almost always square, 
are surmounted by copper spindles full of rings, as 
many as there are stories in the pagoda. The tip 
of the spire thus looks like the plume or pompon 
of a helmet. Often on the top of this corkscrew- 
looking affair is a vane-like sheet of copper, cut 
along the edges to resemble a flame of fire ; and, 



IDEAS AND SYMBOLS 171 

surmounting the whole, is the tama, or jewel 
which symbolizes the soul. In time of a severe 
earthquake, this pagoda spire sways and rocks 
like a pendulum turned upside down; but the 
pagodas are well built, and are rarely or never 
overthrown. Indeed, some of these square towers 
are hollow like a bell, and have a great pendulum 
or tongue of heavy wood inside hanging through- 
out their whole length. This helps the tall mass 
to keep the centre of gravity during the rocking 
of the earth. 

This tama, or jewel, also called the " sacred 
pearl," is an emblem of the soul, and in Japanese 
the word for " soul " and " jewel " is the same. 
It is properly a crystal ball, or pear-shaped gem, 
grooved or ringed at the top near the stem. On 
Japanese pictures, trays, cabinets, and bronzes 
we may see it held in the dragon's claw, or the 
dragons are fighting for it, or it is wreathed in 
fire, or it is set in places of honor, or the Dragon 
King of the World Under the Sea presents a pair 
to Ojin, the baby Mikado who goes to conquer 
Corea. It is the jewel of the ebbing and the 
flowing tide, controlling the movements even of 
the ocean. Indeed, the sacred jewel, in some 
form, plays a wonderful part in Japanese my- 
thology, fairy tales and art. One of the prettiest 
stories in which it figures is that of Tan Kai Ko. 
A fisher-maid is beloved by a court noble, and 
for his sake dives down beneath the sparkling 



172 JAPAN 

waves into Riu Gu, and, defying the dragons, seizes 
the holy jewel and brings it up to earth. The 
Japanese are very fond of rock-crystal balls, and 
the lapidists carve them so skillfully from the flaw- 
less quartz that, when resting on a tripod of silver, 
each seems like a floating bubble. 

What is the origin of the idea, and how was the 
symbol evolved ? 

The Buddhists believe that when the body of a 
saint or holy person is cremated, there will be 
found in the ashes a hard, shining substance like 
a gem. It is called a shari, and it used to be 
eagerly looked for in the ashes of the cremation 
furnace. This, when found, was usually smaller 
than a pea. It was then carefully inclosed in a 
little shrine or box shaped like a pagoda. This 
" pocket god-house " was made of rock-crystal, 
and the shari, or soul-substance, was easily visible 
through the transparent stone. I have several 
times seen these pocket pagodas containing one, 
two, or three shari in the compartments or stories 
of the little upright cases, which are from two 
to five inches high. They are the equivalents and 
visible manifestation of the souls of the departed. 
Of course it was not difficult to find shari, where 
there were so many priests ready to assist the 
credulous. A thousand years ago, these little soul- 
caskets were made in the form of a tomb, that is, 
in five parts, which we shall describe below. Little 
models of the actual tombs built in the cemeteries 



IDEAS AND SYMBOLS 173 

were also made in clay, about three inches high, 
and kept in houses or temples. The top of each 
miniature tomb or pagoda was fashioned like the 
pear-shaped tama, or emblem of the soul. 

Now, if we go out into a burial-ground, we shall 
see, over the graves or ashes of rich or saintly 
people, the go-rin^ or five-blossom tomb. It con- 
sists of a cube, s]3here, cone, crescent, and flame- 
shaped stone. The cubic square represents earth ; 
the water-drop or ball, water ; the pyramid, flame 
or fire ; the saucer or crescent, wind or air ; and 
the top, which takes the form of a flame just go- 
ing out, represents the tama^ soul or jewel. In 
other words, here are the five elements out of 
which man is made, and to which he returns after 
death — earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Though 
the emblem of the spirit is usually spherical, yet 
very often, again, it is pear-shaped or grooved near 
the top. Hence it is probable that the ringed 
and pear-shaped jewel is only a conventional 
and condensed form of the go-rin, or the five 
elemental essences. 

In modern times, also, by gradual evolution, the 
go-rin tomb has become the graceful to-ro^ or 
stone garden -lantern, and the superb bronze lamp- 
holder, taller than a man. Hundreds of these, 
as memorial offerings of the vassal princes to the 
Tycoons, are found in the outer courts of the 
cemeteries in Tokio and Nikko. When, at night, 
the numberless lamps in these prettily sculptured 



174 JAPAN 

light-bearers are lighted, and twinkle through the 
trees, the effect is like that of fairyland. In many 
of these, in front of temples, the lamp burns from 
sunset to sunrise. On one, I remember reading 
the inscription, "To give light during the long, 
dark night." 

The custom of the military vassal's bringing a 
gift when he visited his lord is a very old one in 
Japan. lyeyasu and his successors reduced it to 
a system. In Yedo, the two large parks, Uyeno 
and Shiba, were set apart to be the burial-grounds 
of the Shoguns, and were made to excel even 
Nikko in splendor. All that art and wealth could 
devise were lavished in the adornment of the 
groves, gardens, gates, courts, temples, and tombs. 
At these places one can study the wonderful rich- 
ness of Japanese memorial and decorative art. 
Very noticeable, in the pebbled outer courtyards 
of Shiba, ai«e the hundreds of high stone lanterns, 
arranged row upon row like the ranks of an army, 
the gifts of the Fudai daimios. In the next court 
stand the superb bronzes ; and nearest the shrine 
stands a trio of colossal lanterns covered with 
gold, the gift of the San-ke, or three princely 
families, Mito, Kii, and Owari. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE ASHES THAT MADE TKEES BLOOM. 

The specimen of Japanese folk-lore here given 
illustrates life among the common people during 
the Tokugawa times, and their Buddhistic beliefs. 
We tell it in the same style in which it is usually 
narrated in Japan. 

In the good old days of the daimios, there lived 
an old couple whose only pet was a little dog. 
Having no children, they loved it as though it 
were a baby. The old dame made it a cushion 
of blue crape, and at meal-time Muko — for that 
was its name — would sit on it as demure as any 
cat. The kind people fed the pet with tidbits of 
fish from their own chopsticks, and it was allowed 
to have all the boiled rice it wanted. Whenever 
the old woman took the animal out with her on 
holidays, she put a bright-red silk crape ribbon 
around its neck. Thus treated, the dumb creature 
loved its protectors like a being with a soul. 

Now the old man, being a rice-farmer, went 
daily with hoe or spade into the fields, working 
hard from the first croak of the raven until O 
Tento Sama (as the sun is called) had gone down 
behind the hills. Every day the dog followed 



176 JAPAN 

him to work, and kept near by, never once harm- 
ing the white heron that walked in the footsteps 
of the old man to pick up the worms. For the 
old fellow was kind to everything that had life, 
and often turned up a sod on purpose to give food 
to the sacred birds. 

One day doggy came running to him, putting 
his paws against his straw leggings, and motioning 
with his head to some spot behind. The old man 
at first thought his pet was only playing, and did 
not mind it. But the dog kept on whining and run- 
ning to and fro for some minutes. Then the old 
man followed the dog a few yards to a place where 
the animal began a lively scratching. Thinking 
it only a buried bone or bit of fish, but wishing 
to humor his pet, tlie old man struck his iron-shod 
hoe in the earth, when, lo ! a pile of gold gleamed 
before him. 

He rubbed his old eyes, stooped down to look, 
and there was at least a half peck of kohans, or 
oval gold coins. He gathered them up and hied 
home at once. 

Thus, in an hour, the old couple were made 
rich. The good souls bought a piece of land, 
made a feast to their friends, and gave plentifully 
to their poor neighbors. As for doggy, they petted 
him till they nearly smothered him with kindness. 

Now in the same village there lived a wicked 
old man and his wife, who had always kicked and 
scolded all dogs whenever any passed their house. 



ASHES THAT MADE TREES BLOOM 177 

Hearing of their neighbors' good luck, they coaxed 
the dog into their garden and set before him bits 
of fish and other dainties, hoping he would find 
treasure for them. But the dog, being afraid of 
the cruel pair, would neither ^at nor move. 

Then they dragged him out of doors, taking a 
spade and hoe with them. No sooner had doggy 
got near a pine-tree growing in the garden than 
he began to paw and scratch the ground, as if a 
mighty treasure lay beneath. 

" Quick, wife, hand me the spade and hoe ! " 
cried the greedy old fool, as he danced with joy. 

Then the covetous old fellow, with a spade, and 
the old crone, with a hoe, began to dig ; but there 
was nothing but a dead kitten, the smell of which 
made them drop their tools and shut their noses. 
Furious at the dog, the old man kicked and beat 
him to death, and the old woman finished the 
work by nearly chopping off his head with the 
sharp hoe. They then flung him into the hole, 
and stamped down the earth over his carcase. 

The owner of the dog heard of the death of 
his pet, and, mourning for him as if it had been 
his own child, went at night under the pine-tree. 
He set up some bamboo tubes in the ground, such 
as are used before tombs, in which he put fresh 
camellia flowers. Then he laid a cup of water 
and a tray of food on the grave, and burned sev- 
eral costly sticks of incense. He mourned a great 
while over his pet, calling him many dear names, 
as if he were alive. 



178 JAPAN 

That night the spirit of the dog appeared to 
him in a dream and said : — 

" Cut down the pine-tree which is over my 
grave, and make from it a mortar for your rice 
pastry, and a mill for your bean sauce." 

So the old man chopped down the tree, and 
cut out of the middle of the trunk a section about 
two feet long. With great labor, partly by fire, 
partly by the chisel, he scraped out a hollow 
place as big as a half-bushel. He then made a 
great, long-handled hammer of wood, such as is 
used for pounding rice. When New Year's time 
drew near, he wished to make some rice pastry. 
So the white rice in the basket, and the fire and 
pot to boil the rice dumplings, and the pretty red 
lacquered boxes, were got ready. The old man 
knotted his blue kerchief round his head, the old 
lady tucked up her sleeves, and all was ready for 
cake-making. 

When the rice was all boiled, granny put it in 
the mortar, and the old man lifted his hammer to 
pound the mass into dough, and the blows fell 
heavy and fast till the pastry was all ready for 
baking. Suddenly the whole mass turned into a 
heap of gold coins. When, too, the old woman 
took the hand-mill, and, filling it with bean sauce, 
began to grind, the gold dropped like rain. 

Meanwhile the envious neighbor peeped in at 
the window when the boiled beans were being 
ground. 



ASHES THAT MADE TREES BLOOM 179 

" Goody me ! " cried the old hag, as she saw 
each dripping of sauce turning into yellow gold, 
until in a few minutes the tub under the mill was 
full of a shining mass of kohajis (©val gold-pieces), 
" I '11 borrow that mill, I will." 

So the old couple were rich again. The next 
day the stingy and wicked neighbor, having boiled 
a mess of beans, came and borrowed the mortar 
and magic mill. They filled one with boiled rice, 
and the other with beans. Then the old man 
began to pound and the woman to grind. But at 
the first blow and turn, the pastry and sauce 
turned into a foul mass of worms. Still more 
angry at this, they chopped the mill into pieces, 
to use as firewood. 

Not long after that, the good old man dreamed 
again, and the spirit of the dog spoke to him, 
telling him how the wicked people had burned the 
mill made from the pine-tree. 

" Take the ashes of the mill, sprinkle them on 
withered trees, and they will bloom again," said 
the dog-spirit. 

The old man awoke, and went at once to his 
wicked neighbor's house, where he found the mis- 
erable old pair sitting at the edge of their square 
fireplace, in the middle of the floor, smoking and 
spinning. From time to time they warmed their 
hands and feet with the blaze from some bits of 
the mill, while behind them lay a pile of the 
broken pieces. 



180 JAPAN 

The good old man humbly begged tlie ashes, 
and though the covetous couple turned up their 
noses at him, and scolded him as if he were a 
thief, Jiey let him fill his basket with the ashes. 

On coming home, the old man took his wife 
into the garden. It being winter, their favorite 
cherry-tree was bare. He sprinkled a pinch of 
ashes on it, and, lo ! it sprouted blossoms until it 
became a cloud of pink blooms which perfumed 
the air. The news of this filled the village, and 
every one ran out to see the wonder. 

The covetous couple also heard the story, and, 
gathering up the remaining ashes of the mill, kept 
them to make withered trees blossom. 

The kind old man, hearing that his lord the 
daimio was to pass along the high road near 
the village, set out to see him, taking his basket 
of ashes. As the train approached, he climbed 
up into an* old withered cherry-tree that stood 
by the wayside. 

Now, in the days of the daimios, it was the cus- 
tom, when their lord passed by, for all the loyal 
people to shut up their second-story windows. 
They even pasted them fast with a slip of paper, 
so as not to commit the impertinence of looking 
down on his lordship. All the people along the 
road would fall upon their hands and knees, and 
remain prostrate until the procession passed by. 
Hence it seemed very impolite, at first, for the old 
man to climb the tree and be higher than his 
master's head. 



ASHES THAT MADE TREES BLOOM 181 

The train drew near, with all its pomp of gay 
banners, covered spears, state umbrellas, and 
princely crests. One tall man marched ahead, 
crying out to the people by the way, " Get down 
on your knees ! Get down on your knees! " And 
every one kneeled down while the procession was 
passing. 

Suddenly the leader of the van caught sight of 
the aged man up in the tree. He was about to 
call out to him in an angry tone, but, seeing he 
was such an old fellow, he pretended not to notice 
him and passed him by. So, when the daimio's 
palanquin drew near, the old man, taking a pinch 
of ashes from his basket, scattered it over the tree. 
In a moment it burst into blossom. 

The delighted daimio ordered the train to be 
stopped, and got out to see the wonder. Calling 
the old man to him, he thanked him, and ordered 
presents of silk robes, sponge-cake, fans, a netsuM 
(ivory carving), and other rewards to be given 
him. He even invited him to visit him in his 
castle. 

So the old man went gleefully home to share 
his joy with his dear old wife. 

But when the greedy neighbor heard of it, he 
took some of the magic ashes and went out on the 
highway. There he waited until a daimio's train 
come along, and, instead of kneeling down like the 
crowd, he climbed a withered cherry-tree. 

When the daimio himself was almost directly 



182 JAPAN 

under him, he threw a handful of ashes over the 
tree, which did not change a particle. The wind 
blew the fine dust in the noses and eyes of the 
daimio and his Samurai. Such a sneezing and 
choking ! It spoiled all the pomp and dignity of 
the procession. The man whose business it was 
to cry, " Get down on your knees," seized the old 
fool by the top-knot, dragged him from the tree, 
and tumbled him and his ash-basket into the ditch 
by the road. Then, beating him soundly, he left 
him for dead. 

Thus the wicked old man died in the mud, but 
the kind friend of the dog dwelt in peace and 
plenty, and both he and his wife lived to a green 
old age. 



•CHAPTER XXII. 

SIGNS AND OMENS. 

Now that the Japanese are being civilized after 
the Western fashion, a great many of the old 
beliefs of the people are passing away. Men of 
science, the doctors, and the boys and girls taught 
in the public schools laugh at the ideas of their 
grandmothers. In the cities and towns the old 
folk-lore and fireside stories are being forgotten, 
and the household customs and superstitions are 
fading away. In the country they linger longer, 
and millions of Japanese still believe that cutting 
the finger nails too closely weakens the strength, 
that drinking milk produces skin diseases, or that 
washing the head on " the day of the horse " will 
make their hair red. 

The doctors are busy in showing the Japanese 
that the laws of good health demand that they 
give up wearing straw sandals and wooden clogs, 
and put on leather boots and shoes. They tell 
them to furnish their houses with chairs and 
tables, and that plenty of soap skillfully applied, 
and frequent changes of under-clothing, are good 
for them. But the country folks are very apt to do 
as their fathers did. Their houses are built under 



184 JAPAN 

the spell of superstitious ideas, rather than for 
comfort or health. But as in Europe and Amer- 
ica, in spite of science, some people think there 
are dismal forebodings in a raven's croak and luck 
in a horseshoe, that it is not well to sit at dinner 
with thirteen people or begin a journey on Fri- 
day ; so in Japan fears and hopes are awakened 
by certain signs and omens. Let us look at a 
few of these. 

I have known Samurai gentlemen, who were 
fathers and wished their sons and daughters to go 
up in the world, who looked well to their gardens. 
They would never have a grapevine growing near 
their houses, because the fruit hangs downward. 
The words nari sagaru^ to hang down, to descend 
from a high station in life to a low one, to become 
poor, would be sometimes spoken. It might mean 
that the ^ boys and girls would also sink in the 
world. Such words of evil omen are avoided, and 
whatever might suggest them is removed from 
sight. 

Some of these household superstitions bear a 
striking resemblance to, or are exactly like, our 
ideas on the same subject. Thus, the appearance 
of white spots on the finger-nails indicates to the 
possessor that she is to receive a gift. The more 
numerous the spots, the more dresses and pre- 
sents she will receive. Young ladies especially 
believe this. 

When a person's left ear itches, some one is 



SIGNS AND OMENS 185 

talking evil of him ; if his right ear, good. When 
both ears need scratching, people are talking 
variously. 

The croaking of the crow is a harbinger either 
of sorrow or gladness. Usually it is the former ; 
but when the crow croaks with his throat towards 
a house in " jumping notes," the master will often 
cry out, " Uketa, uketa " (I accept it), and expect 
some accidental good fortune to befall him. When 
many crows assemble near a house and caw, it is 
a sign of misfortune to that house. Strange to 
say, lovers hear in the notes of the crow the tones 
of love and affection. 

It is very easy to make puns in Japanese, and 
a great many times the pun is shown to the eye 
by an orange, walnut, radish, charcoal, or some 
other object, as well as by a word to the ear. 
A person about to start on a journey is often 
presented with a package containing a walnut 
(hurumi : kiiru, come back, mi, man, — " May 
you return safely"), peas (rname, healthy, active, 
busy), and a piece of dried fish, which expresses 
the hope that he may be well preserved while 
away. 

If a person meet a funeral cortege in the street, 
it is a fortunate omen ; but if, in walking along, 
the procession overtakes him, it is extremely un- 
fortunate. In such a case, the person overtaken 
will rush ahead into a house or shop to be out 
of sight. In passing a house in which there is a 



186 JAPAN 

corpse, many people put their thumb inside their 
fist to keep off the evil. 

A child will die within the next three years if 
he be struck with a broom, beckoned to with a 
dipper, or if he fall down in a graveyard. A 
child is taught to eat carefully, and to handle the 
chopsticks deftly, by being warned that it will 
become a cow if it drop the rice on its clothes. 

When people suffer from chronic ague, if a 
mirror can be put under the bed of the patient, 
without his knowing it, he will recover. In some 
other diseases, the calcined leg-bone of a man, 
taken from the cremation house, put under his 
head in the same way, will effect the same result. 
A Samurai often put the sword of the sick man 
in the same place for the same purpose. 

Many daimios and their high officials formerly 
would not eat a roast herring (konosJiiro : hono^ 
also this, shiro^ castle) because they were afraid 
their castle would be burned or destroyed. 

A persevering lover, who would but cannot win 
his obdurate charmer, will succeed in melting her 
heart and making her love him, if he scatter upon 
her, unknown to her, some ashes of a water-lizard 
previously calcined and pulverized. 

In pouring out oil for the lamp during kan (the 
coldest part of winder, late January or early Feb- 
ruary), if by accident even a single drop of oil 
is spilled on the floor, some damage will be done 
by fire to the house. This, however, may be 



SIGNS AND OMENS 187 

averted by sprinkling a few drops of water on the 
head of the spiller of oil. I have known plenty 
of amusement at the observance of this ceremony. 
As in many other instances, the old superstition 
has decayed into fun, and the merry laughing re- 
minded me of an old plum-tree stump buried in a 
mass of pink blossoms. 

A shooting or " creeping " star denotes that a 
soul has left the body. Some one is dead. 

When a person sneezes once, some one is prais- 
ing him ; when two nasal explosions occur, he is 
being decried ; if he cachinnates three times suc- 
cessively, he has taken, or will take cold. The 
Japanese who has taken cold says : " Kaze wo 
hiita" (I have drawn wind). 

When the sun is seen to shine on falling rain, 
instead of announcing that " the devil is beating 
his wife," the Japanese people say that foxes are 
marrying. The artists always represent the foxes 
going to a wedding in a shower. 

A comet portends earthquake, famine, typhoon, 
war, or some other great calamity. 

A Japanese boy who sees a sparrow walking 
by putting one foot before the other, like a duck, 
instead of leaping with both feet, is as happy as 
the Irish boy who discovers a four-leaf clover for 
the first time. 

It is supposed that in a thunder-storm it is 
perfectly safe to take refuge at the side of a 
mulberry-tree, which in Japan is kept at a height 



188 JAPAN 

rarely over six feet, as the lightning never strikes 
the mulberry-tree. 

When a swarm of bees alight near a house and 
make their honey, it is a sign of great prosperity 
coming to that house. 

If a man find a fan lying in the road, he is 
likely to be a member of some noble family in 
the future. 

On New Year's Day, merchants shut the doors 
of their storehouses, lest good fortune depart. 
People never sweep the floor on that day, lest 
good luck be also swept away. 

A man who borrows money and gives his pro- 
missory note affixes his stamp upon the paper 
several times, always making an odd number. If 
stamped with an even number the note is not 
likely to be paid. In Japan a seal is even more 
important .than a signature, and the government 
requires voters to stamp their ballots, and thus 
to reinforce their sign manual. 

If, while dressing the hair, either masculine 
queue or feminine coiffure, the hairstring be 
broken, the omen is a sinister one. A wife may 
lose her husband, or a man his best friends. 

It is a very bad custom to stick chop-sticks 
upright in a bowl of rice, for this is done for the 
dead. 

By looking intently in a mirror at the hour of 
two in the morning, one may see the future of her 
life. A lady once tried to prove this assertion, 



SIGNS AND OMENS 189 

and, looking in the mirror, saw the figure of a 
beggar having her own countenance. After that 
she paid great attention to economy, and lived 
happily and in comfort all her life ; but at her 
death, a mat such as beggars wrap themselves in 
fell down on the roof of her house, which proved 
that she had become a beggar in the other world ! 

The udoge is the name given to a very delicate 
flower which in rare instances blooms on a slen- 
der stem growing out of the ceiling or walls of a 
room, perhaps generated by the warmth and mois- 
ture. Its appearance is hailed with passionate 
delight by all natives of Japan, from noble to 
peasant's child. To the official, it is a harbinger 
of promotion ; to the merchant, wealth ; to the 
farmer, bounteous crops; to the student, success 
in acquiring knowledge. 

The etiquette of the table requires that the 
chopsticks should be laid at the right of the eater. 
A gentleman or ordinary person, on sitting down 
to a meal and discovering that his chopsticks 
are laid on his left, will be very angry, and per- 
haps refuse to eat ; for criminals also have their 
meals thus served. 

A person does not like to receive any present 
which has no noshi upon it, because this is omitted 
in presents made to or for the dead. A nosM is 
a piece of gay-colored paper folded in a particular 
way, and always accompanying presents. 

Three persons will never sweep a room together, 



190 JAPAN 

lest they see a spectre at night. The same num- 
ber will never hang up a mosquito-net together 
for the same reason. Mosquito-nets are called 
ha-cJio (mosquito-houses), and are of the same 
size as the whole room. 

Whenever the master of the house, or father of 
a family, starts on a journey, it is quite common 
to prepare his meals at home as usual while he is 
away. This is done in order, as is supposed, to 
propitiate his shadow, and avoid all risks of hun- 
ger while away from home. Photography at first 
was very unpopular, because it was supposed that 
every time a person had his picture taken he lost 
a certain portion of his soul, which went through 
the camera into the photograph. 

When a mother has died leaving a young infant, 
the clothes of the new-born orphan, that may have 
hung in the air during the day, are carefully 
taken into the house at night. The reason for 
this is, that the spirit of the dead mother comes 
in the form of a bird, and, hovering near the gar- 
ments of her child, makes it long for her and 
causes it to cry. 

Curious superstitions about the dog, the cat, the 
fox, and the badger taking human shape, or en- 
tering into men and women so as to possess their 
souls, have for many centuries been current, and 
the wonderful stories about them would fill a 
library. Public schools, telegraphs, and railroads 
are rapidly driving these creations of diseased 



SIGNS AND OMENS 191 

brains into oblivion ; yet the newspapers show that 
such phantoms of the imagination die hard. The 
foxes, that used to turn into daimios and lead 
processions, now become locomotives and railway 
trains. It will be a good many years yet before 
the last fox story is told in Japan. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE DUTCH YEAST IN THE JAPANESE CAKE. 

Iyeyasu and his line of Shoguns made it their 
business to build a sort of Chinese wall around 
Japan. More exactly, they trusted that, like a 
castle with a great ditch or moat filled with water 
all around it, Japan, with the ocean on all sides, 
could defy the enemy of change. Their policy 
was the double one of shutting out the foreigners 
and shutting in the natives. All ships larger than 
a certain size were burned. No Japanese must 
leave the country on pain of death. No ship- 
wrecked natives were to be returned by foreigners. 
On every high road, in the village and on the city 
streets, were hung the edicts prohibiting Christi- 
anity. Thus the rulers expected to keep out all 
disturbing forces. Whatever was like seed or 
leaven must be destroyed. Japan was to be in- 
vulnerable. It was to be a baptism of Achilles 
in the Styx on a national scale. 

Yet all history shows that some little detail is 
omitted even in the best-laid plans of men. 
Achilles' heel is vulnerable ; and a leaf falls on 
the back of Siegfried when he is dipped in the 
pool of dragon's blood. Both heroes lose their 



DUTCH YEAST IN THE JAPANESE CAKE 193 

lives through the weak spot. So with the Japan- 
ese. They are a people always full of curiosity. 
The Yedo rulers wanted to know what was going 
on elsewhere in the world. They therefore kept 
a peep-hole to spy out what other folks were doing. 

Like rulers, like people. Many a time, while 
traveling in the country, I found at the hotel that 
the white stranger was looked at through the 
paper sliding partitions. In the other rooms, with 
stealthy footsteps, the women, and often the males, 
would, with finger moistened in the mouth, noise- 
lessly punch a hole in the mulberry paper. Chan- 
cing to look up, I could see a flashing black eye at 
each hole. 

After all, it was only a paper wall the Japanese 
were able to build. They punctured it at Naga- 
saki. Here, at Deshima, or the Outward Island, 
they allowed the Dutch to settle and build a 
factory, as a trading-house was then called. Dur- 
ing twelve months, the Hollanders gathered up 
Japanese products and merchandise to exchange 
for European goods. Once a year the ships from 
Rotterdam or Amsterdam came to bring news and 
products. 

The Dutch traders lived at Deshima under very 
strict rules, like the old German Hanse merchants 
in mediaeval London. The Yedo rulers thought 
no harm could come from keeping this little peep- 
hole on the world. So, like Thornrose in her 
castle, with all her doors barred, pretty Japan, 
the Princess Country, fell asleep. 



194 JAPAN 

This settlement of the Dutchmen, however, 
proved to be like the tiny aperture in the dike 
that lets the flood come in ; or as the little seed 
dropped by the bird that tears down the masonry ; 
or the leaven that changes all the old, and puts in 
its place something entirely different. Let us see 
how the Dutch helped to give us the New Japan. 

It was when the Dutch Republic was struggling 
against Spain and her mighty armies that she sent 
out her first ships to the far East. At first, only 
the Portuguese knew the sea path and had the 
charts. A Dutchman named De Yries, when in 
Portugal, made copies of the charts. Armed with 
these and good cannon and cutlasses, two little 
Dutch ships in 1598 sailed against the sun month 
after month until into the China seas. One 
of them was wrecked, but the other, named 
Charity, which had on board an Englishman, — 
one of the ^en thousand then in Holland learn- 
ing republican ideas, — reached Sakai, near Osaka, 
in 1600. The Englishman's name was Will 
Adams. The local governor told them to go up 
to Yedo. But in the bay, not far from the spot 
where our Commodore Perry anchored his war- 
steamers in 1853, the Dutch ship was wrecked. 
Will Adams and the Dutchmen had to get to 
Yedo on foot. This was the beginning of the 
Dutch influence on trade. 

At first these Hollanders, as was natural, 
brought such things as butter, cheese, and the 



DUTCH YEAST IN THE JAPANESE CAKE 195 

products of their domestic agriculture. Now the 
Japanese nose, to this day, cannot stand cheese, 
and even yet butter is not much in demand. 
Soon, however, the Hollanders learned what the 
Japanese wanted, and pleased their customers by 
importing instruments, medicines, and manufac- 
tured articles of all sorts. They also brought silk- 
worms from China. The first definite treaty of 
commerce was made in 1608, and in 1609 the 
great lyeyasu gave audience to the Dutch captain 
Krombeck, and freely granted to each Dutchman 
a passport, on which were six Chinese characters, 
meaning " Minamoto lyeyasii permits the exten- 
sion of clemency to the bearer." When the 
Japanese envoys were sent by lyeyasu to Holland 
to confirm the treaty, Maurice, the stadtholder, 
and son of William the Silent, was in camp with 
his army. He received and welcomed the Japan- 
ese and made them presents. Then the Japanese 
understood why the Spaniards were to be feared, 
and that the quarrel of the Dutch with them was 
not merely on account of religion, but was for life 
and country. 

The Japanese were very much influenced by 
what they saw, both in the camps and in the rich 
cities of Holland. While their friendship with 
the Dutch grew stronger, they were strengthened 
in their determination to keep the Spaniards and 
Portuguese out of their country. For several 
years they permitted nine or ten Dutch ships to 



196 JAPAN 

come yearly to Nagasaki. The Dutch carried 
out of the country, in most lucrative trade, an 
immense quantity of gold and silver, with which 
they were assisted to keep up their eighty years' 
war for liberty, which gave us, the Americans, as 
Franklin said, " our great example." Many a 
Dutch skipper got rich in the Japan trade. In 
other towns besides Delf shaven, — whence the 
Pilgrim Fathers embarked for America just 
about the time that Will Adams died, and the 
Japanese were driving out the Jesuits, — one 
reads the name Deshima Street, in memory of old 
days in the far East. 

When, in 1647, two Portuguese men-of-war 
came to Nagasaki hoping to open trade, the Jap- 
anese raised an army of over fifty thousand men 
to guard the city and coasts, and gathered in the 
harbor a fleet of nearly six hundred vessels in 
readiness fbr war, but the Portuguese ships went 
away quietly. 

Will Adams, not being allowed to go home, 
married a Japanese wife. He taught navigation 
and boat-building, and was very popular in Yedo. 
The people named a street after him, which is 
still called Anjin cho or Pilot Street. Down on 
the Bay of Yedo, very near what are now the 
imperial dockyards, the Shogun gave him a piece 
of land and the revenues of a village. Here, May 
3, 1620, he died, leaving one child, who did not 
long survive him. His tomb, with its curious 



BUTCH YEAST IN THE JAPANESE CAKE 197 

monument to himself and wife, was discovered a 
few years ago by an American gentleman who 
had read Mr. Hildreth's book on "Japan as It 
Was and Is." It is at Hemi, near the railway 
station, on the road from Yokohama to Yokoska. 

In 1644 a Dutch ship was wrecked on the 
coast, and of the survivors three were made gun- 
nery instructors, and two of them practiced sur- 
gery in Yedo. Lighthouses, in European style, 
at Uraga and Misaki, at the entrance of Yedo 
Bay, were built. At Nagasaki a "flint firearm 
fort " was built. When the Dutch merchants 
visited Yedo every year, many scholars, inquisitive 
for learning, came to them to get ideas; and in 
some cases books, clocks, barometers, thermo- 
meters, surveying and astronomical instruments 
were eagerly sought. These were the times of 
peace, when leisure was abundant, and some of 
the Samurai began secretly the study of the 
Dutch language. Pretty soon there were little 
clubs formed for study, and the government al- 
lowed chosen men to learn astronomy, mathe- 
matics, medicine, and gunnery from the Dutchmen. 
The first maps of the world had been brought to 
Yedo in 1672. Ten years later, some foreign 
horses were imported, and Dutchmen were em- 
ployed to teach riding and veterinary science. 
As the years passed on, many Japanese doctors 
and young men, eager to know the secrets of 
science, openly or furtively made journeys to 
Nagasaki to ask questions, or get books or ideas. 



198 JAPAN 

The fiftli Tycoon, Tsunayoshi, who ruled in 
Yedo from 1681 to 1708, — a period of great 
luxury, — and was himself a great lover of novel- 
ties, patronized the Dutch very liberally. He had 
them import many articles especially for his per- 
sonal use. Among his good acts was the estab- 
lishment of the famous University of Yedo, in 
which the Chinese language and literature were 
taught, and out of which came the great professor, 
Hayashi, who made the treaty with Commodore 
Perry. 

One of the Tycoon's counselors, named Arai, 
was so scandalized at the luxurious habits of the 
time, and the money paid to the Dutch for luxu- 
ries, that he wrote a book against the prevailing 
fashion. In the concluding passage he computed 
the annual export of gold at a sum worth at the 
present day over four million dollars. He further 
declared tRat the Japanese could dispense with all 
the foreign goods except medicines. 

These medicines, by the way, became very 
common all over the country. On most of the 
apothecary-shop signs I used to read the names 
of various Dutch nostrums, and even in the 
Japanese pronunciation, such as "rauda" for "lau- 
danum," could recognize a number of ordinary Eu- 
ropean drugs. Botany was also much cultivated 
during Tsunayoshi's rule, and the number of 
students of foreign science kept on increasing. 

Yoshimune, who ruled in Yedo from 1717 to 



DUTCH YEAST IN THE JAPANESE CAKE 199 

1744, was also a great patron of the Dutchmen, 
and in 1725 a number of European horses were 
imported for his use. 

One of the staples used in payment for Euro- 
pean goods was copper. From 1609 to 1858, it 
is estimated the Dutch carried out of Japan two 
hundred and six thousand two hundred and fifty- 
three tons of copper, silver to the value of one 
hundred and forty millions, and gold to the value 
of seventy-eight millions of dollars. The yearly 
profit of the Dutch was for many years over three 
millions of dollars. Their annual visit to Yedo, 
the procession of merchants, officers, and porters 
numbering over two hundred persons,, cost them, 
with the presents given to the Japanese, over ten 
thousand dollars. 

It was not long after Yoshimune's death that 
some of the Samurai in Yedo began the study of 
the Dutch language. Their difficulties at first 
were great, for their facilities were few indeed. 
They persevered, however, and pretty soon clubs 
were formed for the mastery and enjoyment of 
Dutch books. The translation of scientific works 
began to be made and published, and in that way 
European ideas filtered down among the people. 
The Dutch were quick to find that their most 
profitable importations were invoices of books on 
every branch of science. In the seventeenth cen- 
tury Holland led the world in learning, and the 
making of books. In the eighteenth they were 



200 JAPAN 

not far beliind. The Dutch were glad and proud 
to find so promising a market for their scientific 
literature at the ends of the earth. 

Among the scientific men of Europe who took 
employment under the Dutch in order to see 
Japan, was Engelbert Kempfer, who wrote a 
superb book on Japan. Several of the Dutch 
superintendents also were authors. In 1825 Dr. 
Franz Van Siebold reached Yedo, and lived in 
the great city for over three years. -He stimulated 
or trained up scores of bright young men to be 
observers of nature, and to use their minds accord- 
ing to the modern scientific method. 

Yet all this time the government at Yedo re- 
fused to allow the Dutchmen to have maps or 
books relating to Japan, and what Kempfer and 
Siebold and others obtained was by secret means. 
In November, 1828, two Japanese were impri- 
soned for selling Dr. Van Siebold a map. Other 
natives who were found making maps on the 
foreign method were punished. 

Evidently there were two parties at court, and 
alternately the liberal and the oppressive policy 
prevailed ; yet despite the fact that many Japanese 
authors, artists, and scientific men were persecuted, 
imprisoned, punished, or suffered death, the leaven 
spread. In hundreds of cities and towns all over 
Japan there were students of Dutch books, phy- 
sicians who practiced medicine according to the 
Western method, and thousands of men who had 



DUTCH YEAST IN THE JAPANESE CAKE 201 

visited the Dutchmen at Deshima, or had gained 
a smattering of European knowledge. In this 
way the prejudice against foreigners was softened, 
and interpreters were trained ready for a political 
change that would give them mental freedom. 
Among these eager seekers after light were some 
who obtained a knowledge of Christianity. Most 
of the present prominent leaders of the Christian 
churches, the eloquent preachers, scholars, and 
writers in Japan, are sons, grandsons, or other 
relatives of these early students of Dutch. 

When Napoleon crushed the Dutch Republic, 
the red, white, and blue flag of the Netherlands 
was driven from the seas. Until the Dutch again 
took Holland in 1815, there was not much trade 
with Japan. From 1799 to 1809 both of the 
ships arriving at Nagasaki were owned by Amer- 
icans, and floated under the seventeen-starred flag 
of the United States. 

Owing partly to this interruption, but more on 
account of the increasing severity of the Japanese 
regulations and reform of luxurious habits in 
Yedo, trade dwindled until it no longer paid ex- 
penses. Nevertheless, the Dutch, out of sentiment 
and for the honor of the flag, kept up intercourse. 
In July, 1844, King William II. sent a man-of- 
war with an envoy and letter advising the Shogun, 
whose name was Minamoto lyeyoshi, to open 
Japan to foreign intercourse. This letter paved 
the way for Commodore Perry. During the time 



202 JAPAN 

of the Mexican war, and of the British movements 
in India and China, the Dutch kept the Japanese 
well informed, advising them of the danger of 
keeping their country closed, or of insulting a 
nation so powerful as the United States. The 
Yedo government took the good advice given, 
and, through the Americans, Matthew Perry 
and Townsend Harris, Japan was opened to the 
world. 

When those in authority finally awoke to face 
the problems of modern life, they sent promising 
native students to Holland, bought Dutch ships, 
machinery, and munitions of war, and engaged 
Dutch instructors in various departments of sci- 
ence and art. When, indeed, Thornrose had rubbed 
her eyes and opened her castle to all well-behaved 
visitors, she made choice of English as her favo- 
rite language, but the Dutch was her first love. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

INTERIOR FORCES MAKING NEW JAPAN. 

When the Japan of our day astonished the 
world by abolishing feudalism, adopting the civi- 
lization of Christendom, creating a constitutional 
government, and becoming in most outward fea- 
tures a modern state, there were many who said 
that " the Japanese had reached in twenty years 
what it took other countries centuries to acquire." 

The statement is no more true than to say that 
a nation is born in a day, or that the acorn 
planted this morning will be an oak to-morrow 
evening. 

Such talk seems very foolish to the student of 
Japanese history. He knows that for two hun- 
dred years the Dutch seed of European civiliza- 
tion was growing secretly. He sees, also, other 
great forces, both inwardly and outwardly, under- 
mining the system of lyeyasii and preparing for 
the New Japan. 

Among the interior agencies at work was the 
revival of literature. When the long wars had 
ceased, libraries were gathered, old records were 
searched, and scholars had time to study and 
think. One school of learned men began to 



204 JAPAN 

make research into ancient and mediaeval history ; 
another studied the Shinto religion, and .a third 
the Chinese system of ethics. Even art and the 
drama lent their aid to stimulating thoughts that 
were not favorable to the despotism of the Yedo 
government. 

The revival of pure Shinto, which began under 
jMabuchi and was carried on by Motoori and 
Hirata, was wrought between the years 1697 and 
1843. These scholars interpreted the ancient 
poems and scriptures. They cultivated a taste 
for the native literature, and a love for " Japan 
as it was '* before the Shogun and feudalism 
existed. They published books, lectured much, 
and had many pupils. The results of their teach- 
ings were reverence for the Mikado and a desire 
to see him sole ruler, and a dislike for Buddhism 
and the Shogun who patronized this religion. 
Above all, these scholars fed the burning zeal of 
their pupils for the restoration of Shinto as the 
established state church, with the Mikado as its 
head. Shinto meant nationalism. In provinces 
like Mito, Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and Echizen, a 
party began to form that desired the abolition of 
the dual system of government by throne and 
camp, and a return to that of the early ages. 

The study of ancient Japanese history was dan- 
gerous to the Shogun's authority, and a direct 
aid to the restoration of the Mikado. The daimio 
of Mito gathered a library of over one hundred 



INTERIOR FORCES MAKING NEW JAPAN 205 

thousand volumes, and his own college of learned 
men. He also invited to assist, and correct the 
historical books which were written in the Chinese 
characters, the scholars who had fled from Peking 
when the Ming dynasty fell before the Manchiu 
Tartars in 1627. One of these men laid out, in 
imitation of a classic Chinese scene, the renowned 
Mito gardens in Yedo, still the most famous in 
Japan. The tombs of other Chinese refugee 
scholars, who died after high honor had been be- 
stowed on them, are near the city of Mito, about 
seventy-five mites northeast of Tokio. Under the 
second daimio of Mito (1628-1700), the new his- 
tory of Japan, written in purest Chinese, and 
comprised in two hundred and forty-three volumes, 
was completed. Japanese volumes, being much 
smaller than ours, are easily carried. The work 
immediately became a standard, and was widely 
copied and read all over the country. Its effect 
on the minds of the Samurai was tremendous. It 
pointed out the fact that historically the Shogun 
was a usurper. Logically, and according to an- 
cient Japanese law and religion, no one but the 
Mikado ought to rule. 

The work of the men of Mito was followed up 
by the scholar Kai Sanyo. After digesting the 
contents of over six hundred books, and spending 
twenty years in literary labor, he published the 
" Nihon Guaishi," or " Japan's History Outside 
the Imperial Palace." Recounting the story of 



206 JAPAN 

the military families from the Taira to the Ashi- 
kaga, he showed that every Samurai's loyalty was 
to the Mikado only. The name of Rai, as a 
noble exponent of literary Japan, is carved in the 
granite of the Boston Public Library. 

The study of the moral systems of Confucius 
and Mencius also tended to make clear the fact 
that the true master of Japan was in Kioto, and 
that his imitator in Yedo was only a servant. 
Supporters of the feudal system, with the Shogun 
at its head, made especial use of the Confucian 
ethics, with its central doctrine of obedience, to 
secure their own authority. Yet, in the end, this 
doctrine hurt the Yedo rulers. "For," thought 
the Samurai, " if the Shogun is a vassal of the 
Mikado, why does he not obey him?" Then they 
reasoned and said, "Nay, he must obey him. 
Yedo must be obedient to Kioto." Finally they 
cried, " Let us, above all, reverence the Mikado, 
and compel even the Shogun to obey him." 

This was the way men talked long before Amer- 
ican men-of-war anchored in Yedo Bay. The cen- 
sorship, oppression, and cruelties, but especially 
the blunders of the government, only increased 
the feeling. When authors were imprisoned for 
publishing books, when artists and actors were 
punished for pictures and plays which fed the 
rising sentiment, when scholars were nourishing 
their minds on European ideas through the study 
of Dutch, the dual system and the Tokugawa rule 



INTERIOR FORCES MAKING NEW JAPAN 207 

were doomed. Before Perry's time, earnest pa- 
triots also agitated for a representative council or 
assembly, in which national affairs could be dis- 
cussed. Such men were the reformers before the 
Reformation, the morning stars heralding the sun- 
burst of 1868. 

The authors, artists, scholars, and reformers 
imprisoned, persecuted, banished, or compelled to 
commit seppuku for their liberal opinions, or 
safely escaping to Europe or America, were not 
all of one mind. They ranged from Shintoists 
to Christians, and from the most fanatical and 
narrow-minded patriots who hated foreigners to 
the liberals who wanted Japan fully opened to 
diplomacy, commerce, and civilization. 

Besides this great ferment of individual opinion, 
there were deep political hatreds among the great 
clans, especially those whose ancestors had been 
overcome by lyeyasii. The men of Satsuma, Cho- 
shiu, Tosa, and Hizen in the southwest were espe- 
cially eager to rise and overthrow the power of 
the Tokugawa family. No doubt many wanted 
a new division of spoils, but all burned to rein- 
state the emperor to supreme power. 

The signs of the times, to those who could read 
them, in the year 1838, when lyeyoshi, the twelfth 
Shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty, was inducted 
into office, were ominous. The men in power, 
however, could not see danger, and so in Yedo the 
luxury and the carousal, the processions and the 



208 JAPAN 

entertainments, went on. The song of tlie sing- 
ing girl, the twang of the three-stringed banjo, the 
lascivious dance, the circulating wine-cup, were 
enjoyed as before. When the unarmed American 
ship Morrison, in 1839, approached Uraga, the port 
of entry for Yedo, to return seven shipwrecked 
Japanese sailors, cannon-balls were the only an- 
swer to her peaceful signals. A cowardly govern- 
ment, afraid of the light, insisted on killing good 
books and men at home, and in warning off those 
who might bring the torch from afar. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

OUTWAKD AGENCIES. 

So far we have looked within. Let us ndw 
see what external agencies helped to make New 
Japan. 

In Japanese sacred legend, folk-lore, and art, 
the sea-monsters have much to do with the intro- 
duction of civilization. The saint rides over the 
waves on a dolphin, and the scholar brings pens, 
books, and manuscripts on the back of a finny- 
creature. Some truth underlies these fantastic 
stories. In our times we may say that modern 
civilization came to Japan on a whale. 

When the Yankee whalers of New Bedford, in 
Massachusetts, began, about the year 1750, to 
find their game leaving them, they sailed into 
new waters in quest of blubber and bone. They 
moved their ships down into South American 
waters. Then they rounded Cape Horn, and 
pushed up into the northern Pacific Ocean. Our 
treaties with Russia made all sub-Arctic waters 
free. Soon the " black ships " began to loom up 
in fleets along the coast of Japan. 

Some of the foreseeing Samurai thought it 
ominous. Then they were scared. They respect- 



210 JAPAN 

fully remonstrated at the indifference of tlie gov- 
ernment, saying the coasts ought to be fortified. 
Soon American sailors were shipwrecked on the 
coast, and had to be returned through the Dutch. 
Ronald McDonald, a boy born in Oregon, vol- 
untarily left adrift, got into Yezo, and thence 
to Nagasaki. He taught English, and gave the 
Japanese some new ideas. When asked to de- 
scribe the government of the United States he 
was told to begin at the beginning. He did so, 
by explaining that in America the people are 
king and the source of authority. This puzzled 
the Japanese officers. It was a long while before 
the American sailor boy's statement, that the 
people made the government, percolated through 
their brains. 

When it was found that the North Pacific 
was so fruitful, the whaling industry increased 
mightily. Commodore Perry found that seven- 
teen millions of dollars were invested in it. In 
one year, eighty-five of the " black ships," as the 
Japanese called our painted, smoky, and sooty 
whalers, were counted passing one port. Steam 
made the ocean a ferry, and increased the com- 
merce to China, making also coal-supplies and 
open ports necessary. American ships of peace 
and men-of-war came frequently to Japan to take 
away shipwrecked sailors, or to return Japanese 
waifs picked up at sea. In 1846, the American 
sloop-of-war Vincennes, and line - of - battle ship 



OUTWARD AGENCIES 211 

Columbus, came into the Bay of Yedo to ask that 
trade be opened. The answer from Yedo to this 
knock of a gloved hand was a positive refusal. 
In 1849 Commander Glynn, in the United States 
brig Preble, came to Nagasaki, and demanded in 
no mild terms the instant release of eight Amer- 
ican sailors. Obtaining them, he learned that 
when detained in prison at Yezo these sailors had 
heard from their keepers about nearly every 
battle in the Mexican war. When California 
became American, and gold was discovered, the 
next question for the Japanese to face was this : 
A new neighbor had come to live just across the 
steam ferry. Would he not soon be knocking at 
their doors with an iron hand ? 

Thoughtful Japanese at once saw that their day 
of isolation was over. To say so publicly, however, 
meant imprisonment or hara-kiri. Nevertheless, 
men went on studying the Dutch books, believing 
that the people of America and Europe could not 
be such " beasts," " savages," or " barbarians " as 
it was the fashion to call them. About 1850, 
" The Song of the Black Ships," a curious ditty 
about the foreign sailors and vessels, resounded 
all over the country. Two stanzas, put in English 
by Professor Inazo Nitobe, are as follows : — • 

" Tliro' a black night of cloud and rain, 
The Black Ship plies her way — 
An alien thing of evil mien — 
Across the waters gray. 



212 JAPAN 

" With cheeks half hid in shaggy beards, 
Their glance fixed on the wave, 
« They seek our sun-land at the word 
Of captain owlish-grave." 

On November 3, 1852, when Perry was about to 
sail from Norfolk, Virginia, in the steam frigate 
Mississippi, Mutsiihito, son of the Mikado Komei 
and the present ruler of constitutional Japan, was 
born in Kioto. 

The whale had led the way, the American 
whalers foUowe'd. The war ships, now numbering 
a squadron, loomed up. Approaching by way of 
Riu Kiu, they finally entered Yedo Bay. At five 
P. M., on the 7th of July, 1853, four of the finest 
vessels of the United States navy, two of them 
steamers, cast anchor off Uraga. Commodore 
Perry,^ the younger brother of the hero of Lake 
Erie, commanded the expedition. Oliver's dis- 
patch in 1813 read, " We have met the enemy 
and they are ours : " Matthew's, forty years later, 
might have been, " We have met friends, and 
we are theirs." 

In the treaty document, signed by Professor 
Hayashi, the Shogun was styled " Tycoon," or 
Great Prince. Two towns, Shimoda in Idzu and 
Hakodate in Yezo, were made open ports for the 
supply of coal, provisions, and water to ships. 
Sailors were to be treated kindly, an American 

1 See the Life of Commodore Matthew Calhraith Perry for a 
full account of the American expedition to Japan. 



OUTWARD AGENCIES 213 

consul might come to reside in Japan, but no 
trade or residence of citizens of the United States 
was allowed. The Japanese were now like their 
Sun Goddess, who opened her cave door on a crack. 
Perry made them presents of a model telegraph, 
a little steam locomotive and railway track, and 
a great many Yankee notions, tools, inventions, 
instruments, and books. On the strand at Yoko- 
hama, he gave them a grand object-lesson in 
Western civilization. 

Now that the door was ajar, who should pull it 
wide open? The Japanese were surprised to find 
the Yankees so prompt. On the afternoon of 
September 3, 1856, a flagstaff was planted and 
the American flag was raised at Shimoda, in 
front of the consulate of the United States. 
Townsend Harris, of New York, was the consul, 
and Mr. Heusken was his Dutch secretary. He 
bore a letter from President Pierce, which he 
was charged to deliver to "the emperor" in 
person, as the Americans thought the Tycoon 
to be. After a year's waiting, Mr. Harris entered 
Yedo in triumph. In the great castle hall, before 
all the daimios, and in audience of the Shogun, 
he presented the President's letter. This asked 
for the opening of ports, for the residence of 
Americans, and for unrestricted commerce with 
the United States. 

The great simplicity of Japanese life, even in 
Yedo, surprised Mr. Harris. There was little that 



214 JAPAN 

reminded him of European courts. He saw no 
jewels, diamond-hilted swords, crowns of gold, 
splendid carriages, or fine horses. Everything 
seemed severely plain, and even mean, though all 
was spotlessly clean. He scrupulously insisted on 
all his rights as a representative of the President 
of the United States, and was treated with great 
respect. His life was in some danger from ronins, 
who were " foreigner-haters," but he was never 
injured, though young Heusken finally fell under 
the swords of ultra-patriotic assassins. 

Like a teacher at school, who gathers a class 
around him to teach A, B, C, Mr. Harris spent 
many months instructing the high officials of the 
government in the knowledge of international 
law and modern customs. Finally a draft of the 
treaty was ready, and then Mr. Harris learned 
that the Shoguu was only a sham "emperor." 
No treaty could be made unless the Mikado at 
Kioto agreed to it. The coming of the foreigners 
had disturbed the balance between the throne 
and the camp, and the political machinery was 
at once put out of order. Though the Tycoon 
sent first Professor Hayashi, and then Hotta, the 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Kioto, the court 
would not yield an inch. The kuge, who had 
never seen a foreigner, were flatly opposed to 
opening the country to the " ugly barbarians." 
Mr. Harris was so surprised and annoyed at the 
long delay, after the Yedo officers had made and 



OUTWARD AQENCIES 215 

agreed to the treaty, that he threatened to go to 
Kioto himself. 

The long-pent-up forces now began to break out, 
and a national upheaval was threatened. Seeing 
the gravity of affairs, the Yedo government sought 
out its ablest man, named li. Thoroughly under- 
standing the serious situation, and fearing that 
Japan might be conquered like India, he set his 
seal to the new treaty, July 29, 1858. 

It is true that British and French armies were 
then in China, but Mr. Harris had already won 
the diplomatic victory without a ship or a soldier, 
having nothing but the American name to back 
him. Shortly after, treaties were made with 
other nations, and in 1859 the foreign settlement 
of Yokohama began. 

The high-handed act of the Shogun in assuming 
the title of " Tycoon," and the opening of the 
country without the Mikado's consent, were taken 
as insults to the Mikado and the heavenly gods. 
Thousands of Samurai now left the service of 
their masters the daimios, and, floating about, be- 
came "wave-men," or ronins. On the 23rd of 
March, 1860, a party of them made an attack on 
the train of the premier li in Yedo and killed him. 
They now began the systematic assassination of 
foreigners and the burning of their legations, their 
object being to get the Tycoon into a war with the 
treaty nations. Several bloody attacks were made 
and many Englishmen killed, besides Mr. Heus- 



216 J^PAN 

ken, the secretary of Mr. Harris. The ronins 
succeeded so well that all the foreign ministers 
left Yedo except Mr. Harris, who kept the Amer- 
ican flag flying. Although they called themselves 
Samurai, the ronins thought it was doing the gods 
service to draw their swords and cut down the 
"hairy barbarians," Their ardor for this cow- 
ardly business was somewhat damped when one 
of them, at the demand of the foreign ministers, 
was publicly beheaded on the common execution 
ground for criminals, instead of his being allowed 
to commit hara-kiri. 

To the Americans in Japan these were dark 
days. At home the civil war was raging, and the 
Union armies at first suffered many defeats. The 
Alabama was sweeping the seas of American com- 
merce, so that even letters had to be sent home to 
the United States on British ships. 

The Yedo government, having its hands full 
with the foreigners, could not control the daimios 
and their retainers. The custom of requiring them 
to spend half their time in Yedo was abolished, 
and henceforth the gathering of the clans was at 
Kioto, which soon became full of all sorts of char- 
acters. Sat sum a and Choshiu were among the 
first to take their orders from the Mikado, and to 
defy the Tycoon. An army sent from Yedo to 
chastise the Choshiu men was beaten ; for the 
clansmen were hardy, earnest, lightly clothed, well- 
drilled, and armed with American rifles, while the 



OUTWARD AGENCIES 217 

Tycoon's soldiers were unskillful, laced up tightly 
in clumsy old armor, for which they had grown 
too fat, besides being enervated by the long peace. 
The Samurai, hostile to the Tycoon, now began 
to unite their fortunes with the Choshiu men, who 
began to buy and own ships and to build forts 
commanding the narrow Straits of Shimonoseki. 
When the' batteries were completed they hoisted 
a flag inscribed with the words, " In obedience to 
the imperial order," and to fire upon every pass- 
ing foreign ship. The first was an American 
merchant ship named the Pembroke, the next a 
French dispatch vessel, and the third the Dutch 
frigate Medusa. 

When Captain David MacDougal, of the United 
States sloop-of-war Wyoming, heard of this, he 
left off hunting for the Alabama and steamed into 
the Straits, July 16, 1863. In a brilliant action 
of ninety minutes, firing fifty-five shots, he de- 
stroyed one of the six batteries, sunk one brig, 
and with an eleven-inch Dahlgren shell blew up a 
steamer ; returning with a loss of six men killed 
and seven wounded. A few days later, the French 
landed and destroyed a battery, but the Choshiu 
men still held the forts. 

About this time an attempt was made by a 
large body of men from the same clan to capture 
the imperial palace in Kioto, and carry off the 
Mikado, so as to clothe the acts of Choshiu with 
his sacred authority. The plot failed ; a battle 



218 JAPAN 

ensued, in which many men were killed, and thirty 
thousand houses in Kioto burned. It was a 
strange sight to see men dressed in armor loading 
and firing cannon. The soldiers of Echizen and 
Satsuma were honored for defending the palace, 
and the Choshiu clansmen were forbidden ever 
again to enter Kioto. 

Near Yedo, while the procession of the daimio 
of Satsuma was passing along the Tokaido, a 
party of English travelers were riding along, and 
not thinking of dismounting, as the natives always 
did, braved danger and rode on in the face of 
the train. Taking this as an insult, the Samurai 
cut down the three tourists, wounding two and 
killing a third, Mr. Richardson. For this act a 
British fleet bombarded Kagoshima, the chief city 
in Satsuma. They also demanded and were paid 
an indemnity of five hundred thousand dollars 
from the T^ycoon, and twenty-five thousand dollars 
from the Satsuma clan. 

In September, 1864, the combined squadrons — 
seventeen war-ships — of four nations — British, 
French, Dutch, American — destroyed the forts at 
Shimonoseki, " cleaned out the den," and com- 
pelled the Yedo government to elect between 
paying an indemnity of three millions of dollars 
and the opening of new ports. The first alternative 
was chosen, and the treasury in Yedo was nearly 
exhausted, even by the partial payment. 

The southern clans, thus severely chastised by 



OUTWABD AGENCIES 219 

the foreigners, learned wisdom. They resolved to 
unite to beat the Shogun and restore the Mikado 
to his ancient authority. Their plan was the one 
common in all Japanese history, to get hold of the 
Son of Heaven, and to proclaim a new government 
in his name. Matters hastened to a crisis. Early 
in 1867 the old emperor died, and the young and 
now reigning Mikado took office. By the force 
of public opinion, which demanded a return to 
the ancient system in force before the days of 
Yoritomo, the Shogun resigned November 9, 1867. 
A council of the daimios was appointed to meet 
December 15th to arrange for the formation of a 
new constitution, but it failed to meet. Mean- 
while Kioto was filling up with armed men, espe- 
cially from Satsuma, and a coalition of clans was 
formed for the service of the palace. On the first 
of January, 1868, Hiogo and Osaka were opened 
to foreign trade amid naval and military display, 
the firing of salutes, and the raising of flags. 

In Kioto, on the 3d of January, 1868, the 
" Mikado reverencers " having obtained an order 
from the court, the troops of the coalition seized 
the palace gates, and a new government was estab- 
lished on the ancient foundation. The Tycoon 
was greatly surprised and enraged to find the pal- 
ace in the hands of his enemies, and secretly left 
Kioto on the night of January 6th, going to 
Osaka, where he received the visits of the foreign 
ministers, who were puzzled to know with what 



220 JAPAN 

government they were to treat. Yielding to the 
advice of his followers, he advanced ali the head 
of several clans , still loyal to him against the city 
of Kioto, to deliver the young Mikado from his 
advisers. By order of the court, he was forbid- 
den, and declared a cJio-te-hi, The " loyal army " 
marched out to fight him. 

The civil war opened by a battle at Fushimi, 
near Kioto. The Tycoon was beaten, and fled by 
sea to Yedo. He soon after retired to private 
life, first in Mito and then in Shidzuoka, where he 
still lives quietly. After campaigns in the north, 
and various battles, the imperial armies were 
everywhere victorious and peace again reigned. 

One of the first acts of the new government was 
to ratify the treaties in the name of the emperor. 
For the first time, the name of a Mikado was 
made public and shown in a signature. Then the 
emperor tftok an oath to establish a national as- 
sembly, to decide measures by public opinion, and 
to abolish uncivilized customs. This oath is the 
foundation of the constitution of New Japan. The 
capital was removed to Yedo, which was named 
Tokio. From this time, this great city became the 
political and intellectual centre of the national 
life. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

NEW JAPAN. 

Sevekal years before the fall of the Yedo gov- 
ernment, parties of young men got away secretly 
from Japan to study in the United States and 
Europe. In the autumn of 1866, the writer of 
this little book, when a student at Rutgers Col- 
lege, New Brunswick, N. J., met the first Japa- 
nese lads who came as students to that city. Many 
others followed these two, until there were scores 
of them at work mastering the language and 
the sciences. By November, 1869, the writer had 
met hundreds of the men of New Japan who had 
come into the wonder-world of Western civiliza- 
tion. With a score or so of them he was well 
acquainted. From these he learned much of Jap- 
anese history and home life, especially from one 
Sugiura, of Sats'uma ; and Kusakabe, of Fukui, in 
Echizen. 

Dropping the third person, let me say that it 
was to this latter province and city that I was 
invited by the daimio Matsudaira, Echizen no 
Kami, and his officers. Shortly after graduation 
from college in the summer of 1869, I left for' 
Japan to organize schools on the American prin- 



222 JAPAN 

ciple and teach science. I arrived at Yokohama 
December 29, 1870, and in Yedo, now called 
Tokio, January 2, 1871. 

Here, in the capital, I remained seven weeks, 
meeting several of the great daimios and many of- 
ficers and Samurai who had been active in the 
Restoration. The city was then full of soldiers 
and rough characters, and it was uncertain as yet 
what kind of a country New Japan was going to be. 
Everything seemed to me as strange as moon-land 
or the under-sea world. The Samurai all wore 
swords and top-knots, and many of them scowled at 
the American ; the processions of the daimios were 
gay and full of fuss and show ; the kuge had black 
teeth, spotted foreheads, and brick-shaped hats ; 
the Eta, or pariahs, were still treated as beasts in 
human form ; and everything was strange, lovely, 
or horrible. It was Old Japan almost unchanged. 

From T<5kio, by kago, jinrikisha, horse, steamer, 
and on foot at times, I made the journey on 
sea, river, lake, and land, by way of Kobe and 
Osaka, to Fukui. From March 4 until January 
22, I saw life in a daimio's castle town ; and dur- 
ing most of this time I was entirely alone, and 
hundreds of miles away from a white person. 
The feudal system was in practical operation until 
October, when the daimio in the great hall of the 
castle bade a solemn farewell to his retainers. 
Over the snowy mountains, in January, I made a 
journey of eleven days to Tokio. Excej)t occa- 



NEW JAPAN 223 

sional journeys to near or distant places in Japan, 
I remained in the capital until July, 1874. Let 
me here summarize what I saw : — 

1. The Emperor no longer living invisible like 
a god, but appearing in public. 

2. The government in the hands of men of Eu- 
ropean ideas, who had been educated in the Dutch 
or the English language. 

3. Feudalism abolished, and all the daimios 
called to live in Tokio, about three hundred petty 
little governments becoming one. 

4. The old adherents of the Shogun, and the 
members of the Tokugawa family, pardoned and 
restored to honor ; the country at peace. 

5. National systems of law, justice, money, 
postal service, education, banks, lighthouses, rail- 
ways, telegraphs, taxation and revenue, with an 
army, navy, treasury, organized for the service of 
the nation. 

6. All rebellions against the national govern- 
ment speedily suppressed, and order maintained 
over the whole empire, including Riu Kiu and 
Yezo. 

7. All claim upon Corea as a military nation 
given up, a treaty of peace and commerce being 
afterwards made. 

8. A most wonderful change in the dress, food, 
ideas, habits, and customs of many of the people, 
and the general adoption of the outward features 
of the civilization of Christendom, 



224 JAPAN 

9. The persecution of Christians stopped, and 
the public edicts threatening punishment removed ; 
Christian schools and churches organized. 

Before leaving Japan I had the pleasure of 
meeting the Prime Minister and most of the mem- 
bers of the Cabinet on their return from the em- 
bassy sent by the Emperor round the world to 
study the civilization of the United States and 
Europe. Besides seeing his Majesty many times 
in public, I enjoyed the pleasure of an audience 
in the imperial palace. New Year's Day, 1873. 

The chief events since 1874 have been those 
leading to the promulgation of the written consti- 
tution of February 11, 1889, under which Japan 
is now governed. New orders of nobility were 
created. The old names of Jcuge or court no- 
ble, and daimio or landed noble, and most of 
the old titles and offices, were abolished, and 
the two classes merged into one under the name 
of kuazoku^ or "flowery nobility," with several 
ranks. The Samurai, now called shizoJcu, gave 
up wearing swords, and relinquished their he- 
reditary incomes, paying taxes like the common 
people ; the latter being admitted to the privi- 
leges, under restrictions, of voting for and in the 
local and national assemblies, and also of serving 
in the army and navy. The various classes below 
the shizoku were made one, the hel-min, or peo- 
ple. The land-tax was first equalized and then 
reduced. Local government was introduced into 



NEW JAPAN 225 

all the keji^ or prefectures, the Christian missiona- 
ries and native churches doing very much for the 
education of the people in parliamentary order. 
The number of public officers and underlings was 
greatly diminished. In a word, government be- 
came national and uniform. 

Among the people, taste for foreign architec- 
ture, furniture, dress, food, and social manners and 
amusements greatly increased. There were also 
crazes or manias for things imported from across 
the ocean. Kabbits, pigs, cock-fighting, waltzing, 
spirit-rapping, wrestling, fencing, and a variety of 
ridiculous notions came in vogue, each for a short 
season. The waves of excitement and desire for 
novelties flowed and ebbed. The Japanese showed 
themselves as crazy as excited Americans often 
are over the fashionable phantoms of a day. In 
every instance came the inevitable reaction, and 
native customs, amusements, dress, ideas, and 
things of the older time ruled the day again, for 
a while only, in their turn to pass away. Japan, 
by incessant change, made up for three centuries 
of rigidity. The changing tides of fashion set 
in and went out so rapidly, and often so vio- 
lently, that one would think Queen Jingu was still 
playing with the jewels of the ebbing and flowing 
ocean-tide, fooling the Japanese as she fooled the 
Coreans. 

The greatest event in modern Japan was the 
giving of the constitution of February 11, 1889. 



226 JAPAN 

This took place almost exactly twenty-five years 
after Perry's second visit to Japan and the call- 
ing of a great council of daimios in Yedo to de- 
cide on the opening of the country to foreign in- 
tercourse. The day was one of popular rejoicing, 
probably exceeding anything ever known in the 
empire. Posthumous honors were bestowed upon 
the " Morning Stars of the Restoration," and es- 
pecially upon those who had, in years gone by, 
advocated representative assemblies. 

Government under the new constitution is mod- 
eled after that of Germany, rather than that of 
Great Britain. The Cabinet ministers are respon- 
sible to the Emperor, and not to the Diet. All the 
people are equal before the law, and are granted 
the rights of conscience and most of the privi- 
leges of people in Europe. The Diet meets in two 
handsome edifices built in modern style, with 
chairs, clocks, electric lights, telegraphic facilities, 
and newspaper reporters, and is conducted in 
European fashion. The upper house consists of 
about three hundred nobles and persons nominated 
by the Emperor. In the lower house, the three 
hundred members are elected by voters who pay 
fifteen dollars of national taxes. The chief work 
of the Diet is to express the public opinion of the 
country, and to shape the general policy of the 
government. From 1868 until 1890, so many 
members of the three clans of Satsuma, Choshiu, 
and Tosa filled the high offices that people called 



NEW JAPAN 227 

the government " Sa-cho-to." This monopoly of 
office and power has now passed away. 

With her changed ideals of civilization, hearty 
acceptance of modern principles of law and jus- 
tice, with her railways, telegraphs, lighthouses, 
schools, colleges, postal and money systems, Japan 
now asks to be acknowledged and received by the 
treaty powers as an equal among civilized nations. 
With her constitution, granting liberty of con- 
science to all subjects of the Emperor, and with 
her increasing Christian population, the day can- 
not be distant when tardy justice will be meted to 
her. 

Shall it be given ? Americans all, Townsend 
Harris ^ and the missionaries first, then teachers, 
merchants, and the government at Washington, 
have long ago voted " Yes." 

In the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia 
in 1876, in the rotunda of the main hall, a poem 
in hira-hana was painted in large letters. It was 
written a thousand years ago. We translate it as 
follows : — 

"In the ancient Yaraato island, the sun rises: 
Must not even the foreigner reverence ? " 

These two questions have been answered, and 
first by the English-speaking peoples. Japan, 
now one of the great Powers of the world, is 

1 See his life and work in Townsend Harris, First American 
Envoy in Japan. Boston, 1895. 



228 JAPAN 

recognized as belonging in the fraternity of civi- 
lized nations. After twenty-two years of protest, 
appeal, and discussion, the Japanese have won 
their case. On the 26th of August, Lord Kim- 
berly and Viscount Mutsu in London, and on the 
22d of November, 1894, Secretary Gresham and 
Minister Kurino at Washington, signed new trea- 
ties. These abolish extra-territoriality, and con- 
sular courts in Japan, and acknowledge Dai Nip- 
pon as sovereign and equal. 

Without waiting to be impressed by the mili- 
tary strength displayed in the war with China in 
1894-95, Great Britain and the United States 
acted justly and honorably. The American treaty 
was ratified December 8th, and went into oper- 
ation before the dawn of the twentieth century. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

TWENTIETH-CENTURY JAPAN. 

In 1906 Japan, with her fifty millions of people, 
has become a World Power, while the drift of 
thought, education, and social tendencies is toward 
democracy. Unintelligent foreigners ascribe the 
progress of Dai Nippon to contact with Western 
nations, and conceited Japanese, to the develop- 
ment of her own interior forces. The truth lies in 
the golden mean. Native powers, trained in Bu- 
shido, or the Knightly Code, have been stimu- 
lated during thirty-five years by Christian mis- 
sionaries;^ and five thousand or more Yatoi, or 
salaried assistants, have been called to Japan 
from foreign countries. 

China and Corea in the early ages, Buddhism for 
a thousand years, the Portuguese during the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries, the Dutchmen 
from 1620 to 1868, and foreigners from every 
nation have helped with the natives to make the 
Tei Koku Dai Nippon to which we all shout " Ban- 
zai." Yet of Japan's outward or inward change, 
since 1850, the latter is probably the greater. 

^ See VerbecJc of Japan, A Maker of the New Orient, and Dr. 
Kitobe's Bushido : the Soul of Japan, for proof of this. 



230 JAPAN 

Three wars beyond Japan's own borders have 
been potent in creating the new empire. The first 
expedition to Formosa in 1874 helped to clear the 
field of Asiatic politics. It dealt a blow at the 
Chinese contention that all the little and big 
countries surrounding the Middle Kingdom were 
her vassals. Indeed, China did not know how to 
deal with other nations as equals, for she never 
suspected that there were any ; and she had to be 
taught. The Mikado's government in 1868 made 
short work of the Chinese claim to Riu Kiu (Loo 
Choo Islands) by sending several companies of 
infantry to Napa, and unfurling the sun-flag over 
the "king's" castle, and creating the new "Oki- 
nawa prefecture." Its Japanese name, Okinawa, 
means long cord, but its Chinese name means 
" hanging tassels," that is, a fringe of little balls 
on China^s mighty robe of empire. First conquered 
by the famous archer, Tametomo (p. 109) it was 
considered by the Japanese an appendage to Sat- 
suma, and part of their empire. In 1879 the 
petty "king," Sho Tai, was brought to Tokio a 
captive. He was made a marquis, but died in 
1901. Thus ended the last of the dual sovereign- 
ties in Asia. 

Having thus asserted full rights, the Tokio 
statesmen were bound to accept responsibilities. 
In 1871 a junk containing fifty-five natives of 
Riu Kiu was stranded on the southeastern coast 
of Formosa, and all on board were killed by the 



TWENTIETH-CENTURY JAPAN 231 

copper-colored Butan head-hunters. Many Euro- 
pean and American ships had been wrecked on 
this coast, and in 1867, in its furnace-like bamboo 
jungles, the United States forces, under Admiral 
Bell, had been repulsed with loss. Japan made 
demand at Peking that these savages be punished. 
When China denied all responsibility over this 
part of Formosa, a Japanese expedition under 
General Saigo, with infantry uniformed and 
armed in modern style, besides a force of laborers 
with road-making tools and materials, sailed away 
and landed near the scene of the shipwreck. In 
addition to fighting with the savages in their 
stronghold, the Mikado's men, during the summer 
and autumn of 1874, made roads and built habita- 
tions. China, stirred up by foreign intermeddling 
in Peking, ordered the " invaders " away, but 
Japan, ignoring Chinese statecraft, demanded that 
the law of nations be made the standard of action. 
Following up the work of Soyeshima, who had 
secured audience of the Chinese emperor, Okubo 
went to Peking. He refused to treat the question 
at issue concerning Riu Kiu and Formosa in any 
other way than according to international law. 
China agreed to pay Japan an indemnity for ex- 
penses, and to assume control over the whole of 
Formosa. 

While Japan was thus forging ahead in the 
ways of enlightened civilization, Corea was still 
in the midst of mediaeval barbarism. The samu- 



232 JAPAN 

rai had taken off their swords, got to work, earned 
their own living, and paid taxes ; but in Corea the 
Yang-ban (civil and military) lived on the people, 
politics were corrupt to the core, and the little 
country suffered all the evils which follow when 
there is no real distinction between the Court and 
the Government. The women of the harem, work- 
ing in secrecy behind the curtains, often dictated 
the real policy of the country. 

The Corean regent had sent an insulting letter 
to Japan, and a war party led by very able men 
demanded that the peninsula should be invaded 
and conquered. But to do this, at that time, 
would be for Japan to play into the hands of 
Russia. After a long debate before the throne, 
the Mikado decided, in the autumn of 1874, 
that there should be no war, and sent a powerful 
squadroi^ on a peace embassy. After a clever use 
of Commodore Perry's tactics, Kuroda and Inouye 
secured from the Corean Government a treaty of 
peace, friendship, and commerce which was signed 
on February 27, 1876.^ Then began the Japanese 
occupation of the once Hermit Kingdom, not by 
soldiers, but by merchants, fishermen, and farm- 
ers. Most of the commercial business of Corea, 
and the building of the trunklines of railway, have 
been done by Japanese, and nearly all the stim- 
ulus to increased trade, sea traffic, and agriculture 
has come from them. Americans, however, have 

^ See Corea, the Hermit Nation, 10th edition, 1904. 



TWENTIETH-CENTUBY JAPAN 233 

been active in building steam and electric rail- 
ways, and in exploiting the gold mines of the 
country, which are known to be exceedingly rich. 
By her action in recognizing what was so long the 
vassal of China, as an independent nation, the 
Japanese gave the second staggering blow to her 
notion of being the Central State of the world. 
This treaty smote hard, also, the European doc- 
trine that Asiatic nations exist chiefly to be con- 
quered by Occidentals. 

Besides riot and bloodshed in other parts of 
Corea, the mutual jealousy of the eTapanese and 
Chinese troops in Seoul brought on an armed con- 
flict in July, 1882, which resulted in much diplo- 
macy between Peking and Tokio. In 1894, after 
a great rebellion of the Corean Tong-Haks (Par- 
tisans of Oriental Learning), the Peking govern- 
ment sent a body of troops into the peninsula, 
notifying Tokio, but referring to Corea as "our 
vassal state." The Japanese, protesting against 
such language, sent troops also. Captain, now 
Admiral, Togo sunk the Chinese transport Kow 
Shing. Declarations were issued August 1 from 
each of the two " Sons of Heaven," — one in Pe- 
king, the other in Tokio, and war broke out. 

Hitherto the Japanese, though long a civilized 
people, rich in art, lore, and culture, had not at- 
tracted the serious attention of the world, but now 
Dai Nippon's opportunity came and she improved 
it. The same academic nicety of touch, seen in 



234 JAPAN 

all her art, was shown in all her military ener- 
gies. She moved easily her mighty armies and 
fleets with a secrecy and celerity, perfection and 
power, undreamed of. On September 17 the 
Chinese fleet, consisting of battleships and men- 
of-war, was virtually annihilated in a great sea- 
fight, and in the land battle of Ping Yang, the 
day before, most of the Chinese regular cavalry 
and infantry were destroyed. Then the Japanese 
army, moving into Manchuria, beat the Chinese 
at every point. A second force took possession of 
" the sea-gates of Peking," Wei-hai-wei and Port 
Arthur, and overran Southern Manchuria. 

Even more remarkable was the medical and 
legal conduct of the war by the Japanese. While 
China, clinging to mediaeval methods, had scarcely 
any surgeons or nurses, her opponents were thor- 
oughly naodern in their arms, equipment, trans- 
portation, strategy, and hygiene. They had 
superb hospitals and hospital ships, and a large 
corps of surgeons and trained women nurses. 
With each army corps or expedition went a law- 
yer, well versed in international law, to see that 
everything was done in accordance with the law 
of nations. As wonderful as the bravery of the 
men in the field were the sacrifice and industry of 
the women at home. 

China sued for peace, and Li Hung Chang was 
sent to Japan to meet Ito and Mutsu. China 
agreed to cede Southern Manchuria and pay a war 



Uriahs 



TWENTIETH-CENTUEY JAPAN 235 

indemnity, but the idea of Japan's having any 
land on Continental Asia was distasteful to that 
party in Russia which has so long dictated the 
policy of the Czar and his empire. These men 
regarded all Asia very much as the King of Spain 
once looked upon all America, that is, as the 
Czar's private property, upon which, anyone 
coming in from the outside without their pei 
sion is considered a burglar. When, on Maj 
1895, the little steam tug bearing the olive branch 
from Japan to the Chinese, at Chefoo, was mov- 
ing through the fog, the great battleships and 
war vessels of Russia, Germany, and France 
were making a tremendous smoke and noise as a 
naval demonstration to overawe Japan. Had 
the Mikado possessed five battleships, he and his 
statesmen would then and there have declared 
war against Russia. But, possessing only cruisers, 
and being exhausted after a great war, the Japan- 
ese, in the interests of humanity, yielded, receiving 
the island of Formosa and a money indemnity 
from China. With astonishing vigor they began 
developing the resources of this island home of 
the morning glory and the blue bamboo, and the 
storehouse of camphor groves. In their cities, 
sanitation, schoolhouses, and railways, they gave 
helpful and stimulating object lessons to the 
natives, and brought the head-hunting savages 
into the ways of civilization. Best of all, they 
made Formosa pay for itself. 



236 JAPAN 

Believing that they would sooner or later be 
obliged to fight Russia, which for a hundred years 
or more had threatened their territory, shedding 
blood on Saghalien and Tsushima, the Japanese 
embarked on a career of defense and military 
enlargement. The tons of Chinese silver paid 
over were invested in battleships of the largest 
size and finest type, and the army was doubled. 
Industries, manufactures, and commerce entered 
upon a vast expansion. Measures for improving 
the public health and physical vigor, and for the 
elimination of disease, began on a large scale. 
The deliberate purpose of the doctors was to make 
every Japanese taller, heavier, and stronger. 

Although people supposed to be educated still 
talk foolishly about " Japan's twenty-five hundred 
years of written history," there are no native 
documents older than the eighth century. There 
was a Mikado and his tribe in the earlier ages, 
but no nation. There was no " Japanese people," 
in the present sense of the term, any more than 
there was an " English people " in Great Britain. 
Various tribes, of Malay, Tartar, and Corean ori- 
gin, had come up from the South or from the Asian 
mainland, and in the East and North were Ainu 
tribes, and it is doubtful whether altogether, in 
the seventh century, they numbered a million. 
They knew little or nothing about each other, be- 
ing probably no better organized than were the 
Gaels, Picts, Scots, and Britons, and probably 



TWENTIETH-CENTURY JAPAN 237 

not nearly so well as the tribes in the Iroquois 
Confederacy. The Yamato people introduced a 
new form of government from China, and by the 
great reconstruction of A. D. 645 created a state. 
Organizing a regular army, they began the con- 
quest of all the tribes in the peninsula. After 
several hundred years of military activity, of 
Buddhist missionary operations, and of civil or- 
ganization, there was, in the eleventh century, for 
the first time, a "Japanese" nation and people. 
The island of Yezo was scarcely occupied until 
the seventeenth century, and then chiefly because 
of Russian aggressions from the north. In this 
region, called the Northern Sea Circuit, or Hok- 
kaido, live the Ainn, a degraded white race with 
an Aryan language, the aborigines of Japan. Cut 
off from the influences of religion, literature, art, 
and the political and military training which the 
Japanese have had during a thousand years, they 
still remain savages, though now being Chris- 
tianized. 

Four times in their history the Japanese have 
been powerfully influenced and reinforced by civ- 
ilization from the West, so that to-day Japan is 
really an epitome of the religion and art of all 
Asia. Japan was never at any time a true " her- 
mit nation," for Coreans, Chinese, Hindoos, Ibe- 
rians, Dutch, and modern peoples have succes- 
sively taught them and fertilized their minds. First 
China and Corea, in the sixth century, and then 



238 JAPAN 

Buddhism, whicli is an Aryan religion, in the sev- 
enth century, came to enrich Japan. In the seven- 
teenth century it was Southern Europe, through 
the Portuguese and Spaniards, in the eighteenth 
century the Dutch, and in the nineteenth the Amer- 
icans and Europeans in general, but more espe- 
cially the English-speaking peoples, that have been 
the teachers of the Japanese. 

Although the islanders have originated little, 
they have a wonderful power, amounting almost 
to genius, in making choice and adaptation, keep- 
ing what is good and can be assimilated, and 
rejecting what is evil or indigestible. 

Yet Japan is a self-reformed nation that enjoys 
the fruits of the union of the forces of Christen- 
dom and the Orient. Most of her generals and 
admirals and leading men were trained in the 
Oyomei philosophy, which teaches that knowledge 
should be at once translated into action. The 
Japanese are not powerful thinkers in the ab- 
stract, but when they borrow ideas from other 
peoples they at once reduce them to working prin- 
ciples. They are intensely practical. It is not 
likely that the modern Yatoi (hired foreigners, 
from 1870 to 1900) will be turned into gods and 
worshiped after their death, as the mechanics, 
food-providers, and civilizers of early ages were, 
but, nevertheless, there are grateful natives who 
realize the great debt of their nation. 

In one generation, the Japanese have been 



TWENTIETH-CENTUBY JAPAN 239 

transformed from an agricultural to a manufac- 
turing and industrial nation, whose units tend to 
leave the country and dwell in the cities. Four 
decades of public schools, now numbering nearly 
thirty thousand, in the organization of which over 
twelve hundred American teachers have taken 
part, and in which five millions of pupils, from 
kindergarten to university, are trained daily, have 
produced a new kind of Japanese people. The 
results arising from a thousand years of training 
in feudalism, with the adoption of modern scien- 
tific methods, are seen in what may be called 
a public-school army, one of the best educated, 
hygienic, and temperate in the world, every man 
in it burning with patriotic fire and enthusiasm 
to do the Emperor's will. Old loyalty to the 
feudal lord has become patriotism. When life is 
worth living for all in the Mikado's empire, and 
the people are educated to consider preventable 
sickness or disease a disgrace, it seemed folly on 
the part of any Power to provoke such a nation 
to war. " Education is the cheap defense of na- 
tions." Especially was this the case when, after 
1900, recognized as an equal by all the world, 
Japan, during the Boxer troubles in China, had 
shown her military abilities in leading the allied 
forces in the rescue of the legations in Peking, 
and had concluded with Great Britain a defen- 
sive and offensive alliance. 

Kussia, after promising to evacuate Liao-tung 



240 JAPAN 

on October 8, 1903, not only broke her word, but 
claimed, as her sphere of interest, the whole of 
Manchuria and the northern half of Corea. When 
the Russians had armed men on Corean soil and 
their fleet prepared for a naval raid on Japan, di- 
plomacy between Czar and Mikado was broken 
off on February 6, 1904. 

The Japanese navy, escorting three divisions 
of the army, moved out at once, and at Chemulpo, 
Admiral Uriu sunk the Russian warships Variag 
and Korietz. At Port Arthur Admiral Togo with 
his battleships, mines, and torpedo boats, crippled 
the Russian fleet, damaging four vessels. As the 
shores of Manchuria are armored in ice until 
April, the first army under General Kuroki 
landed in Corea, marching unopposed to the 
Yalu River, which was crossed May 30. In the 
first pitched battle between Japanese and Euro- 
pean troops, the Russians were beaten, losing 
over two thousand men and twenty-eight guns. 
Marching over the mountains and dovm to the 
level plain, Kuroki's men pushed on to join the 
Second and Fourth armies under Generals Oku 
and Nodzu, while General Nogi's force, after a 
victory at Nan Shan, invested Port Arthur. 

The three armies having united in front of the 
city of Liaoyang, Marshal Oyama, commander-in- 
chief, and General Kodama, chief of staff, left To- 
kio, July 6, to direct the general movement. In 
the great battle lasting eight days, which opened 



TWENTIETH-CENTUBY JAPAN 241 

August 24, the Japanese drove Kuropatkin's army 
out of their fortifications, and through the city, 
the Russians retreating in good order northward, 
after severe losses. 

The Czar reinforced his army in the Far East 
with his choice European battalions, and early in 
October Kuropatkin moved southward, hoping to 
drive the Japanese into the sea. At the Shaho 
River the fighting was carried on from October 
9th to the 28th ; when, beaten again all along their 
lines, the Russians retreated to the north, and for- 
tified at Mukden. Both armies went into winter 
quarters. At Port Arthur, General Nogi's mortars 
kept up a rain of shells until every Russian ship 
in the harbor was destroyed. The 203-Metre Hill 
was taken December 3, and the city, with its vast 
stores and munitions, was surrendered January 3, 
1905. 

Mukden, the capital of Manchuria, contained 
the Imperial tombs of the Manchiu dynasty of 
China. It was the chief prize of the war, for who- 
ever should occupy it would impress China, and 
convert her people into virtual allies. When the 
battle opened on February 19, 1905, all previ- 
ous records of modern war were broken in the 
extent of the fighting front of one hundred miles, 
and in the number of troops engaged, which was 
about 800,000. The six weeks' campaign began 
in zero weather and in a snowstorm, with a move- 
ment on the extreme right by two Japanese divi- 



242 JAPAN 

sions whicli had marclied from Corea, under 
General Kawamura. General Nogi's army, re- 
leased from Port Arthur, joined in a flanking 
movement on the left. After terrific fighting, 
day and night, until March 7, the Russian centre 
was broken and Kuropatkin's rear threatened. 
On March 10 General Oku's column entered 
Mukden by the southern gate, while Nodzu and 
Kuroki surrounded Kaulbar's corps, and took 
prisoners all caught within the cordon. In this 
awful slaughter the Japanese losses were 41,212 
men and 882 officers. The Russians left 26,500 
dead on the field, while 40,000 of their best sol- 
diers were in Japanese hands. Until April 14 the 
Mikado's army pressed forward in pursuit. 

On the water, the refitted ships of the Mikado's 
navy awaited the great Russian armada of thirty- 
eight battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and vessels 
on special 'service, under Admiral Rojestvensky. 
On the 27th of May the Czar's Baltic fleet entered 
the Strait of Tsushima. Admiral Togo, kept 
informed by wireless telegraphy of the enemy's 
position, moved to the attack in three divisions, 
putting his battleships in the northern front and 
sending his cruisers to strike the enemy's rear. 
At five minutes of two in the afternoon, Togo 
ran up the signal : " The rise and fall of the 
Empire depend upon this single event. Let all 
do their utmost." The steady and accurate gun- 
nery of the Japanese soon decided the ultimate 



TWENTIETB-CENTUEY JAPAN 243 

issue, and when night fell the torpedo boats began 
their work of destruction. Heavy cannonading 
was begun again next day, and by the evening of 
the 28th the battle of the Sea of Japan was over, 
the Russians losing between 4000 and 5000 
killed and 7280 taken prisoners. Of their thirty- 
eight vessels, twenty were sunk; five were cap- 
tured, including two battleships ; two were de- 
stroyed or sunk after escape, six were detained 
and disarmed, and two kept for a time, one of 
which was released. 

This victory, " by the grace of Heaven and the 
help of the Gods," made peace certain, but in 
July Admiral Kataoka led his squadron to Sag- 
halien and took possession of the island. During 
the war the Japanese took nearly 75,000 prisoners, 
and fed them on their own soil, sending some of 
their own educated young men, Greek-Catholic- 
Christians, who knew Russian, to teach the illit- 
erate soldiers of the Czar how to read and write 
their own language. The Russians, during the 
war, took in all about 1500 Japanese prisoners. 
On the side of Japan, twelve vessels, including 
two battleships, were lost. Fifty-seven Russian 
men-of-war, including twelve battleships, were lost 
or captured, and nineteen were disarmed in neutral 
ports. Of the sunken warships, ten were refloated. 

More wonderful than the completeness of de- 
structive victory was Japan's success in prevent- 
ing disease and saving life. In the triumphs of 



244 JAPAN 

science and applied hygiene and surgery, she re- 
versed the record of civilization. During the war 
10,175 Japanese doctors and nurses attended to 
554,885 sick and wounded of their own people 
and 77,805 Russians. The number of the Mika- 
do's soldiers who lost their lives was 135,169. 
The total loss of the Russians in killed, wounded, 
missing, invalided, and disabled was about 500,000. 
At the invitation of President Roosevelt, peace 
commissioners from the two nations met at Ports- 
mouth, N. H., and on the 29th of August, 1905, 
agreed upon terms of peace. The Japanese se- 
cured more than they went to war for, but re- 
ceived no indemnity, and only the southern half 
of Saghalien. Corea became a Japanese protec- 
torate. Dalny and Port Arthur remained in Jap- 
anese possession, and Manchuria was opened to 
the trade of the world. The triuriiphant hosts were 
welcomed fiome, and the visit of their allies, the 
British, with naval and military pageants, made 
Emperor and people soon forget the hardships 
and sacrifices of the war. Four new battleships 
were added to the navy. Two of these, wholly 
the product of Japanese industry, were launched 
early in 1906, but the Katori and Kashima were 
built in England. Able to defend herself against 
all comers, the Land of Great Peace resumed 
activity in the paths of humane endeavor. 

OWAKI. 



INDEX 



Aborigines. See Ainu. 

Adams, Will, 194. 

Adzuma, 48. 

Ainu, 16, 17, 127, 237. 

Alphabet, 83. 

America and Americans, 1, 16, 147, 

208-218, 222, 227, 232, 239. 
Amusements, 39, 65, 67, 187. 
Art, origin of, 32-41 ; and artists, 

37, 40, 54, 96, 103, 122, 123, 152, 

153. 
Awabi, 2, 138. 

Bamboo, 37, 66. 
Benk^i, 114, 127. 
Birds, 31, 102, 105, 185, 190. 
Black Current, 5, 15, 16, 90. 
Buddhism, 56, 59, 70, 71, 75, 115, 118, 
136, 168, 172. 

California, 1, 50. 

China, 12, 13, 77, 81, 147, 148, 205, 
230 ; war with, 233 ; Boxer troubles, 
239. 

Choshiu, 163, 204, 216, 217, 226. 

Christianity, 162, 168, 192, 201, 223, 
224, 229, 237. 

Chronology, 24, 25. 

Columbus, 147, 150. 

Constitution, 21-23, 79, 224. 

Corea, 17-19, 39, 43, 80, 223; and 
Buddhism, 52-59 ; wars with, 158- 
161 ; treaty, 231-233 ; Japanese pro- 
tectorate, 244. 

Creation, 26-28. 

Crystal balls, 28, 29, 52, 143, 171, 225. 

Daimios, 162-165, 174, 180, 186, 218, 

222 223 
D^shima, 193, 196, 200. 
Dragons, 25, 28, 139. 
Dutch, 161, 192-203, 223. 

Earthquake, 61. 
Echizen, 85, 152, 156, 218, 221. 
Education, 81-86, 239. 
Emperors. See Mikado. 



Empresses. See Women. 
Eta, 165, 222. 
Etiquette, 79, 101. 

Fans, 99-101. 

Farmers, 9, 72, 74. 

Female characters. See Women. 

Feudalism, 73-75, 119, 120, 157, 161- 

165, 174, 222. 
Fire, 50. 
Folk-lore, 59, 64, 66-68, 77, 96-98, 

114, 115, 133, 137-144, 175, 183- 

191. 
Formosa, 230, 231, 235. 
Fuji Tama, 47, 94. 
Fujiwara, 94, 131. 
Fukui, 151, 156, 163, 222. 

Games, 39, 102-104. 
Gardens, 169. 
Genji. See Minamoto. 
Genji Monogatari, 63, 104. 
Geography of Japan, 1-7. 
Government, 71-75, 118-123, 161-165, 
222-227. 

Hachiman. See Ojin. 
Hara-kiri, 132, 135, 136, 216. 
Harris, Townsend, 213, 215, 227. 
Heikd. See Taira. 
Hid^yoshi. See Taiko. 
Hojo, 131-136, 141. 
Hokusai, 85, 123. 

Idzu, 110, 131, 213. 
Iy(^yasu, 154, 159-162, 195. 

Jewels, 34, 37, 53,' 54, 171. See also 

Crystal Balls. 
Jingu, 52-56. 

Kamakura, 111, 117-121, 160. 

Kioto, 89, 162, 217-220. 

Kiushiu, 5. 

Kiyomori, 108, 109-113, 116. 

Kobo, 58, 85. 

Kojiki, 40, 43, 82. 



INDEX 



Libraries, 55, 77, 78, 134, 203, 204. 
Literature, 76-79, 80-88, 152, 203, 
205. 

Manners, 99-107, 223. 

Marco Polo, 136, 150. 

Masago, 131. 

Medical and legal conduct of war, 

234, 236, 243, 244. 
Mendez Pinto, 149, 150, 
Mexico, 150. 
Mikado, 21-25, 42-44, 70-71, 97, 98, 

162, 212, 219, 223. 
Minamoto, 93, 108-116, 150, 159. 
Mirrors, 35, 37, 188. 
Mito, 165, 174, 204, 205. 
Mongols, 134. 

Moon, 28, 36, 50, 64, 65, 66, 168. 
Mukden, 241. 
Music, 37, 142. 
Mythology, 32-41,49. 

Nagasaki, 156, 193, 196, 211. 
Names of gods, 26-30, 34, 54. 
Names of Japan, 6, 7, 14, 18, 41, 86- 

91, 130, 135. 
Names of Taiko, 155. 
New Year's Day, 38, 188-224. 
Nitta, 132, 145. 
Nobunaga, 152-155. 

Ojin, 53, 54, 111. 
Oranges, 45. 

Pagodas, 166, 170, 171. 

Paintings, 96-98, 153. 

Perry, Commodore Matthew Cal- 

braith, 50, 130, 194, 198, 210-213. 
Poetry, 37, 40, 49, 50, 85, 86, 105, 211, 

212. 
Polo, 103. 
Population, 8, 9. 
Port Arthur, 234, 240, 241, 244. 



Rai, 205, 206. 

Regalia, 28, 116, 145. 

Rice, 101, 102. 

Ronin, 148, 215, 216. 

Roosevelt, President, 244. 

Russia, 235, 236 ; war with, 240-243 ; 

treaty of peace, 244. 
Rutgers College, 221. 

Sak^, 101, 102. 

Samurai, 74-79, 135, 215, 222, 224. 

Satsuma, 159, 218, 219, 224, 230. 

Schools, 76-79, 222. 

Shimonoseki, 113, 114, 217. 

Shinto, 58, 75, 76, 152, 204. 

Shogun, 51, 120, 161, 174, 212, 216- 

220, 223. 
Stars, 63, 64, 187. 
Swords, 30, 46, 47, 68, 134, 135, 216, 

222. 

Taiko, 154-159. 
Taira, 93, 108-116, 133, 151. 
Tokio, 23, 133, 220. 
Tokiwa, 109, 110. 
Tokugawa, 159. 
Tombs, 167, 172, 173. 
Tosa Niki, 105. 
Tycoon. See Shogun. 

Uzum^, 32-35, 50. 

Volcanoes, 2. 

Whales, 209, 210. 

Women, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 37, 38, 39, 
44, 48, 52, 104, 131. 

Tamato, 20, 31, 51. 
Yamato Dak^ no Mikoto, 45-50. 
Yedo, 160, 161, 164, 196, 200, 220, 222. 
Yoritomo, 110-113, 117-121. 
Yoshitsun6, 100, 124-128. 



^ot ^oung people. 

A Series of Volumes devoted to History^ Biography 

Mechanics, Travel, Natural History^ and Adventure. 

Each, i6mo, 200-300 pages, yj cents. 

1. The War of Independence. 

By John Fiske. With Maps. 

2. George "Washington : An Historical Biographer. 

By Horace E. Scudder. With Portrait and Illustrations 

3. Birds through an Opera Glass. 

By Florence A. Merriam. Illustrated. 

4. Up and Down the Brooks. 

By Mary E. Bamford. Illustrated. 

5. Coal and the Coal Mines. 

By Homer Greene. Illustrated. 

6. A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory, 

By Lucy Larcom. 

7. Java : The Pearl of the East. 

By Mrs. S. J. Higginson. With a Map. 

8. Girls and Women. 

By Harriet E. Paine. 
g. A Book of Famous Verse. 

Selected and arranged by Agnes Repplier. 

10. Japan : In History, Folk-Lore, and Art. 

By William Elliot Griffis, D. D. 

11. Brave Little Holland, and What she Taught us. 

By William Elliot Griffis, D. D. 

12. Photography Indoors and Out. 

A Book for Amateurs. By Alexander Black. Illustrated 

13. Four-Handed Folk. 

By Olive Thorne Miller. Illustrated. 

14. Japanese Girls and Women. 

By Alice M. Bacon. 

15. Frail Children of the Air: 

Excursions into the world of Butterflies. By Samuel H. Scudoer 
Illustrated. 

t6. The Pilgrims in their Three Homes. 

By William Elliot Griffis, D. J>. Illustrated 



Critical ipotices?* 



FISKE'S IVar of Independence. 

John Fiske's book, " The War of Independence," is a miracle. I can neve 
understand why, when a perfect hterary work is issued, all the critics do no; 
clap their hands ! I think it must be because they never read the books. This 
story of the war is such a book, brilliant and effective beyond measure. It 
should be read by every voter in the United States. It is a statement that 
every child can comprehend, but that only a man of consummate genius could 
have written. — Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, in the Springfield Republican. 

The story of the Revolution, as Mr. Fiske tells it, is one of surpassing in 
terest. His treatment is a marvel of clearness and comprehensiveness ; dis 
carding non-essential details, he selects with a fine historic instinct the main 
currents of history, traces them with the utmost precision, and tells the whole 
story in a masterly fashion. His little volume will be a text-book for older 
quite as much as for young readers. — Christian Union. 

SCUDDER'S George IVashington. 

Mr. Scudder's biography of Washington is a fit companion volume for Mr. 
Fiske's little history. It tells the story of the great patriot, soldier, and states- 
man with simplicity, sincerity, and completeness. It is not too much to say 
of these books that they ought to be put into the hands of every boy and girl, 
not only because of that which they contain, but because of the soundness 
of their form. — Christian Union (New York). 

Mr. Horace E. Scudder has executed a difficult task in a praiseworthy 
manner. In spite of the innumerable lives of the first President, who shall 
say anything new of his career and paint it in fresh colors .? Mr. Scudde' 
has been able to do this, and his book will be welcomed by old and youn^. 
— Boston Beacon. 



MERRIAM'S 'Birds through an Opera Glass. 

A capital text-book of the right sort for young observers of Natural His- 
tory. By text-book we do not mean a formal school-book, but a book with a 
clear method, a capital style, and adequate information. This little volume 
describes all the birds to be found in our fields and woods ; describes them^ 
not as an ornithological treatise, but as a keen-eyed and thoroughly interest- 
ing observer would describe them. Such a volume ought to be the com- 
panion of every intelligent boy and girl during the summer. — Christian 
Union (New York). 

The book is deserving of praise for its eminently practical nature. The 
hints to observers with which it opens, the appendix giving the classification 
of birds by general family characteristics, by localities, by colors, by song, 
the books of reference, and the index, all combine to make the book extremely 
Useful. — The Academy (Syracuse). 



GREENE'S Coal and the Coal Mines. 

In the vehicle of the author's terse, vigorous language, the reader is then 
taken down into the subterranean passages, where he is almost made to see 
the operations of mining the fuel, so vividly and picturesquely is the infor- 
mation conveyed. Interesting and valuable statistics are quoted, amusing 
incidents are related, entertaining descriptions and wise suggestions are 
given and made, and, taken altogether, though dealing largely with what is 
essentially dry in its nature, the book makes good reading for the old as well 
as the young. — The American (Philadelphia). 

The exhaustive theme of coal and coal mining is made so concise and 
simple that a child can thoroughly comprehend it. The author covers the 
ground of study in a simple an i interesting way, and furnishes illustrations 
to make the words clearer. — New York School Journal. 

MISS BAMFORTD'S Up and Down the Brooks. 

This is a book which it is a pleasure to read and a duty to praise. Miss 
Bamford tells us of her rambles by the California brookside, and her ac 
quaintances made there; of their habits, their transformations, death and 
burial, or happier release after a period of observation by the captor. . . . 
On the whole, we do not know among recent books any more Hkely to give 
pleasure to the nature-loving boy or girl, or more calculated to stimulate the 
taste for healthy recreation and good reading. — The Nation (New York). 

A charming book, full of most fascinating details in the lives of little' 
jtnown insects, and opening a rich field of study and interest, accessible to 
every country child. . . . We would put the book into the hands of every 
girl and boy. — Epoch (New York). 

MISS LARCOM'S New England Girlhood. 

More than all, as a vivid, tenderly sympathetic yet uncompromisingly 
truthful picture of phases of New England life, in home and at work, which 
have now practically ceased to be, the book has a permanent, one may say 
an historical value. — Boston Advertiser. 

The story is one that will aid other girls to make the most of their oppor. 
tunities, and help them in understanding the real value of life. It is a book 
that every girl will be better for having read. — Boston Herald. 

HARRIET E. PAINE'S Girls and Women. 

I do sincerely hope that all the girls of the day may read it ; it is capable 
of making a splendid generation of them. ... I shall be very glad if any 
words of mine can aid in the least the introduction to notice of such a book 
as " Girls and Women," It will not need much praise; it will praise itself, 
— Adeline D. T. Whitney, Milton, Mass. 

It fills the place for young women that is filled for young men by Dr 
Munger's book, " On the Threshold." . . . Miss Chester's words are worth 
their weight in gold. — Boston Herald. 

There are not very many such books written in a manner both instructive 
and enjoyable, and thiswill be a valuable addition to any young girl's library, 
and also a suitable volume to take up and read aloud at home or in social 
groups when fiction becomes a weariness. — Lucy Larcom, Beverly, Mass, 

An admirable bock, the work of a practical woman, of a wise woman, a 
woman of wed rounded character and varm sympathies. — The Evangelisk 
tNew York). 



MISS REP FLIER'S A Bool of Famous Verse. 

The ♦* Book of Famous Verse," which Agnes Repplier has selected, la 
primarily intended for children whose enjoyment from poetry, being " far- 
reaching and of many kinds," she wisely thinks should be obtained from the 
noblest streams. Accordingly, she has chosen this collection from the rich 
orchard field of English verse, with the sole purpose of giving pleasure, and 
mth an effort carefully to study the tastes, feelings, and wishes of children. 
The collection has been made with much intelligence as well as care, and 
(letter will be that child into whose hands it falls. — New York Times. 

One can only praise the good feeling, good taste, and good judgment 
shown in the selections which have been made. The child who becomes fa 
miliar with these poems may be sure of acquaintance with that which is best 
in the poetry of our English tongue. — Christian Register (Boston). 

The older children often desire a vohime which, without being too bulky, 
may contain the best of the standard ballads and other favorite poems.' 
Miss Agnes Repplier has made a collection which will supply this need very 
well. — The Congregationalist. 

DR. GRIFFIS'S Japan. 

In writing of the "history, folk-lore and art" of Japan, Dr. Griffis has 
found occasion to discuss quite fully the history of both the people and the 
Government. His opportunities for gaining a knowledge of these subjects 
were exceptionally good, for he was upon the ground before old Japan hac 
retired from the stage, and he saw much of the struggle between the old or- 
der of things and the new. The story of this revolution is of special interesf 
to our people, since it is due largely to the example, the influence, and the 
teaching of America that new Japan is the first of oriental countries to try 
ihe experiment of constitutional government and of western civilization. 
. . . Most of the volume is occupied with myths that bear about the same 
resemblance to the myths of the Greeks that Japanese art bears to the art 
with which we are familiar. . . . The explanation of the myths admits ue to 
che world of tlfought and sentiment in which the people live. — Boston 
Transcript. 

DR. GRIFFIS' S Brave Little Holland. 

This book is a marvel of investigation. It might be thought the writer 
had spent a score of years in studying musty old folios to gain information. 
It is packed full of facts which have a most interesting relation to the early 
faettlement of this country, and shows how much Dutch methods and ideas 
had to do with the formation of American institutions. It must help to a 
far higher appreciation of HoUandish influences than is commonly enter- 
tained. While it is full of history, the story is told in a charming way. -= 
Christian Inquirer (New York). 

His book will be read far and wide and greatly enjoyed. It is everywhere 
bright and interesting to a remarkable degree. — Boston Herald. 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston 

85 Fifth Avenue, New York 



OCT 



